Grist » Ted Glickhttp://grist.org
Environmental News, Commentary, AdviceTue, 31 Mar 2015 20:50:26 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/330e84b0272aae748d059cd70e3f8f8d?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png » Ted Glickhttp://grist.org
Stop Fracked Gas Exports Now!http://grist.org/article/stop-fracked-gas-exports-now/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/stop-fracked-gas-exports-now/#commentsSun, 18 May 2014 20:28:06 +0000http://grist.org/?p=242593]]>“On Sunday, July 13th, fracking fighters everywhere, movement leaders like Tim DeChristopher and Sandra Steingraber, mothers fending off compressor stations, fathers fighting pipelines – and everyday people demanding solutions to climate change – will march together by the thousands in DC. We’ll call on President Obama and FERC to reject a gas export disaster, at Cove Point and beyond, and instead redouble investments in the wind, solar and energy efficiency technologies that will support good jobs and a stable climate for all.” http://stopgasexports.org

A new front is opening up in the critical battle to prevent climate catastrophe and protect people from the ravages of a fossil fuel industry going to extremes to find dirty and polluting, last-century energy sources. That new front: fracked gas exports.

As of today, with the exception of a small facility in Alaska, there are no export terminals along U.S. coastlines to ship natural gas (what I call methane gas) to other countries, but the plan of the gas industry, supported by the Obama Administration and Congressional Republicans, is to build a bunch of them over the next several years. Over 20 have been proposed, and one has been approved so far by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC is the semi-independent agency which approves—or rejects, theoretically–gas industry infrastructure proposals. The one export facility approved so far, Sabine Pass, is being built in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and is projected as being ready to export liquefied natural gas, LNG, in late 2015 or 2016.

Another LNG export facility has been proposed for Cove Point, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay, about 50 miles from the White House, and just last week FERC staff issued an “environmental assessment” that stated that there would be “no significant impact” from the building of this facility. A decision on Cove Point by the FERC Commissioners could happen as early as August.

More export terminal approvals from rubber-stamping FERC—which has approved just about every gas industry infrastructure proposal ever brought before it—are likely, absent a massive movement which does for this issue what the No Keystone XL pipeline movement has done for the tar sands oil issue.

Why the rush to export? For the gas industry it’s a simple matter of going where the profits are. Though gas prices in the U.S. have been going up over the last year or so, they are still well below the prices for methane gas in Asia, in particular, as well as in other parts of the world.

In a study produced for the Department of Energy on this issue a couple of years ago, a chart showed that just about every sector of the economy—farmers, manufacturers, consumers, others—would be hurt by exports because it will lead to rising domestic gas prices, as much as two-three times as high as they are now over the next decade or so. I have heard that a study put together by a Congressional office has found that only 10 out of the U.S.’s 50 states will benefit.

Despite these facts, our “all of the above” President and other Administration energy policy leaders, like DOE’s Secretary Moniz, continue to cheerlead for shale gas drilling/fracking and, now, a massive expansion of LNG export terminals.

How serious is this? Here’s what the International Energy Agency, hardly a radical organization, predicted in 2011 would happen if this gas rush worldwide came to pass: “This puts emissions on a long-term trajectory consistent with stabilising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at around 650 ppm, suggesting a long-term temperature rise of over 3.5°C.”

Given that the world’s governments have agreed that this rise should no be more than 2 degrees C and that a 3.5 C increase would guarantee we will go past point-of-no-return climate tipping points, this push to hook the world on methane gas, primarily fracked methane gas, is truly alarming.

How can the Obama Administration announce with a straight face, in late March, that it is moving to develop a strategy to reduce methane—a greenhouse gas between 85 and 105 times as powerful as CO2 in the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere—while pushing a gas export rush? As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote on May 7, “The president has made serious progress with renewable fuels and with energy efficiency. . .but this is being offset by increased production and export of fossil fuels. It’s a contradiction.”

That’s why the upcoming July 13th mass demonstration and march on FERC headquarters in DC is so important. The cry: Stop Fracked Gas Exports at Cove Point and Beyond. It is encouraging that there is a breadth of organizations—29 of them, about half national, the others local Maryland and Marcellus Shale region groups—that came together to issue the call and are working together toward this action. Many more groups from around the country should endorse and work to mobilize many thousands of people to attend!

July 13th won’t be an end. It will be our visible announcement on the national stage that the movements against fracking and against climate change, for environmental justice and a Renewables First! national energy policy, are coming together to expose the lie that fracked gas exports are good for America. They’re not! It’s time to get serious about moving off of fossil fuels and onto a renewable energy path.

On March 28th the White House released a 15-page document entitled, “Climate Action Plan – Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions.” Here’s the first paragraph:

“Reducing methane emissions is a powerful way to take action on climate change [true]; and putting methane to use can support local economies with a source of clean energy [false; it’s not clean] that generates revenue, spurs investment, improves safety and leads to cleaner air [“cleaner” but not “clean”]. President Obama directed the Administration to develop a comprehensive interagency strategy to cut methane emissions.”

It’s a good thing that there is some public attention being given to this issue because of this White House initiative. I’m sure there will be some positive effects from some aspects of the overall plan that is being put forward. But there’s a major conflict built into this initiative given President Obama’s year-after-year, full-throated support for shale gas drilling/fracking and continued touting of methane gas as a “bridge fuel” to the day, decades ahead apparently, when truly clean and safe renewable energy is, finally, “ready for prime time.”

You can see that conflict in the document. One of the biggest is the figure used in the document as far as methane’s climate change impact compared to CO2, the primary greenhouse gas. The document says, “Every ton of methane in the atmosphere has a global warming effect that is more than 20 times greater than a ton of carbon dioxide.” Very wrong and out of date. The latest figure used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that methane is 34 times more powerful than CO2 over a 100 year period and 86 times more powerful over a 20 year period.

Given that the world has less than 20 years, really a lot less, to dramatically decrease its use of earth-heating fossil fuels and shift to renewable sources or we’re essentially cooked, the 20 year figure is without question the one that counts. And since 86 is four times higher than “more than 20,” that means that methane’s impact is much, much greater.

From the document: “methane accounts for nearly 9 percent of domestic greenhouse gas emissions.” This 9% figure comes from using the 20 times figure to calculate methane’s impact compared to CO2. If you quadruple it to use the more accurate and relevant 20 year figure, that translates to methane emissions being responsible for roughly 1/3 of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, a huge difference.

That’s one problem. Another is a very clear bias in the document in favor of “voluntary” efforts as far as the gas industry and other entities responsible for methane emissions. In every single one of the four areas put forward on page 2 as the sources from which methane is emitted—Landfills, Coal Mines, Agriculture and Oil and Gas–“voluntary” programs are listed as among the approaches to be used. Indeed, on page 4 a key sentence, referring to the document’s explanation of these methane reduction efforts, reads as follows: “It highlights new Administration actions to encourage voluntary emissions reductions and to set new standards where appropriate.”

Landfills: Two approaches: 1) EPA to propose “updated standards to reduce methane from new landfills and take public comment on whether to update standards for existing landfills,” and 2) “voluntary programs—partnering with industry, state and local leaders…putting methane waste to use powering their communities.”

Coal Mines: Two approaches: 1) Interior Department will “gather public input” to deal with “waste mine methane on lands leased by the Federal government” [not all mines], and 2) EPA “will continue to partner with industry through its voluntary programs” to reduce various barriers to “beneficial methane recovery and use at coal mines.”

Agriculture: Two approaches, both voluntary: USDA and DOE to outline “voluntary strategies to accelerate adoption of methane digesters” and other technologies “to reduce US dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020; and “support biodigester technology deployment by providing financial and technical assistance through voluntary programs.”

Oil and Gas: The document says that it will “build on the success of voluntary programs and targeted regulation in reducing emissions from the oil and gas sector.” [What successes are they?] “Key steps” projected: 1) EPA will assess the situation and determine by the fall of 2014 “how best to pursue further methane reductions” from the oil and gas industry. “If EPA decides to develop additional regulations” [!!!!!] “it will complete those regulations by the end of 2016. And “through the Natural Gas STAR program, EPA will work with the industry to expand voluntary efforts to reduce methane emissions;” 2) The Bureau of Land Management “will propose updated standards to reduce venting and flaring from oil and gas production on public lands” [only on public lands]; and, 3) “the Administration will identify ‘downstream’ methane reduction opportunities.”

There’s a reference to the US continuing to work with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and Global Methane Initiative.

Finally, the document projects several ways to better measure and collect data on “methane sources and trends [a good thing] (to) enable more effective management of opportunities to reduce methane emissions.”

Not Even a Call for Regulation

This is a very weak set of plans. You couldn’t even describe it as a plan to regulate methane emissions given the repeated emphasis on voluntary programs and, when it comes to possible regulation of the oil and gas industry, an explicit statement that the EPA may or may not decide that additional regulations are needed.

This is truly an example of the Obama Administration’s incrementalist approach to the climate crisis despite its occasional rhetoric about the urgency of our situation.

It’s how you go about dealing with methane if you’re committed not to “renewables first” but “all of the above.”

This plan poses no obstacle to the gas industry’s plans to export fracked methane gas overseas where the big profits are to be made, even as methane gas prices will rise in the US for manufacturers, consumers, farmers—i.e., pretty much everyone else. This export plan, if not slowed or derailed, will dramatically accelerate shale gas drilling and increase methane emissions from the production, venting, storage, transportation and eventual burning of methane gas. So, a decade or so from now, instead of methane accounting for 1/3 of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, maybe it’ll be closer to half. And we will have built a whole new complex of new pipelines, compressor stations, export terminals—like at Cove Point, Md.–and other infrastructure that will make it very difficult to make the needed shift to renewables, conservation and efficiency.

That’s a big thing: that a methane gas export boom will displace wind and solar and other renewables development, just at a time when the prices for wind and solar have come down dramatically, and they are far and away the most rapidly growing sector of the world’s and the U.S. energy system.

Fortunately, the climate and no-fracking movements are active, growing and on the move. Building them and making connections with the rising, multi-issue, broader people-and-planet-first movement, is the best plan available for doing the job. Let’s keep doing it!

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/can-you-reduce-methane-emissions-with-an-all-of-the-above-strategy/feed/0Making a Renewable Energy Revolutionhttp://grist.org/article/making-a-renewable-energy-revolution/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/making-a-renewable-energy-revolution/#commentsSun, 02 Mar 2014 17:13:31 +0000http://grist.org/?p=228121]]>What is needed if we are to have a chance of enacting a renewable energy revolution in enough time to prevent widespread and catastrophic climate disruption?

Revolutions happen when:

~~A majority of people are either actively or passively in support of the changes that, cumulatively, would constitute a revolution;

~~The ruling powers-that-be are divided, unsure of how to handle rising resistance and with some going over to the side of the revolution; and,

~~The revolutionaries are organized and united.

As far as the first requirement, broad mass support, results from a recent poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication show that we’re in pretty good shape. Among other findings, the poll found that:

“About half of Americans (53%) say they would sign a petition about global warming if asked by a person they ‘like and respect.’ About four in ten say that, if asked, they would sign a pledge to vote only for political candidates that share their views on global warming (39%), attend a neighborhood meeting to discuss global warming and actions people can take (38%), or attend a public meeting or presentation about global warming (38%). Nearly four in ten (36%) have joined or would join a campaign to convince elected officials to pass laws increasing energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy as a way to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“About half of Americans (48%) say that they intend to engage in consumer activism over the next 12 months – rewarding companies by buying their products and/or punishing companies by not buying their products – based on whether or not companies have taken steps to reduce global warming.

“One in four Americans would support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse (24%), and about one in six (17%) say they would personally engage in such activities.”

These are significant findings, a clear indication that, though this mass base must be broadened, it is already massive and oriented towards support of activism.

As far as the second requirement, divisions among the powers-that-be, this is a more mixed reality. On the one hand, you have people like billionaires Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg and Larry Page of Google taking visible and public action on climate. There’s former Vice President Al Gore and all that he has been doing for years. There are leaders of establishment groups like the World Bank, International Energy Agency and the United Nations making strong statements about the need to shift away now from fossil fuels to renewables. However, taking Bloomberg as an example, his climate activism is far from consistent; he is a supporter of fracking most particularly. Indeed, from what I’ve experienced and read, fracking is the issue least appreciated for its seriousness by those in the corporate and government world who get it on the urgency of the climate crisis. The vast majority of Democrats in Congress, for example, following the lead of Barack Obama, either don’t get it on fracking, caught up in the false idea that natural gas is a “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy-based economy many years down the road, or if they do get it, they’re hesitant to be vocal about it.

Given the continuing, growing evidence of massive methane leakage throughout the lifecycle of both fracked and conventionally-produced natural gas, as well as the certainty that the growth of fracking will slow down the transition to renewables, it is clear that those of us who are about a renewable energy revolution need to step up our efforts to resist fracking and set back the plans of the oil and gas industry to export their false solution all over the world. This is key, strategic work right now.

Finally, are we climate revolutionaries organized and united?

I should first be more specific about what I mean when I use the term “climate revolutionaries.” My definition: A climate revolutionary is someone who works for a rapid and just transition away from oil, coal, gas and nukes to an economy powered primarily by wind, solar and geothermal energy, with energy sources increasingly decentralized and community-based, with society-wide energy conservation and energy efficiency, and with a conscious plan to ensure that this transition is done in a way which creates living wage jobs both for the currently unemployed and for workers in the fossil fuel industry who lose their jobs because of the shift to renewables.

There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of activists in the United States who I believe are in general agreement with this perspective. They are part of the numerous local, state, regional and national groups which prioritize the climate issue in some way.

From an organizational standpoint, there is no question that these climate revolutionaries are NOT united.

But there’s also no question that there ARE national connections among many of us, primarily through email, websites and blogs, social media, issue-oriented conference calls and less frequent face-to-face gatherings; e.g., the 40,000 who came together at the Forward on Climate rally on February 17th in DC last year or October’s 6,000 at Power Shift in Pittsburgh.

Bill McKibben wrote six months ago about how he sees the organizational reality of the climate movement as a whole today:

“For environmentalists, we have a useful analogy close at hand. We’re struggling to replace a brittle, top-heavy energy system, where a few huge power plants provide our electricity, with a dispersed and lightweight grid, where 10 million solar arrays on 10 million rooftops are linked together. The engineers call this ‘distributed generation,’ and it comes with a myriad of benefits. It’s not as prone to catastrophic failure, for one. And it can make use of dispersed energy, instead of relying on a few pools of concentrated fuel. The same principle, it seems to me, applies to movements. . .

“It’s our job to rally a movement in the coming years big enough to stand up to all that money, to profits of a sort never before seen on this planet. Such a movement will need to stretch from California to Ecuador — to, in fact, every place with a thermometer; it will need to engage not just Chevron but every other fossil fuel company; it will need to prevent pipelines from being built and encourage windmills to be built in their place; it needs to remake the world in record time.

“That won’t happen thanks to a paramount leader, or even dozens of them. It can only happen with a spread-out and yet thoroughly interconnected movement, a new kind of engaged citizenry. Rooftop by rooftop, we’re aiming for a different world, one that runs on the renewable power that people produce themselves in their communities in small but significant batches. The movement that will get us to such a new world must run on that kind of power too.” http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175737/tomgram%3A_bill_mckibben%3A_a_movement_for_a_new_planet/

Do we think we can get to that remade world in record time without a higher level of regularized communication, movement-wide strategic discussion and a 21st century type of organization than what exists right now? Shouldn’t this be something we are talking about, at least?

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/making-a-renewable-energy-revolution/feed/0Western Marylanders Arrested in Stop Cove Point Protesthttp://grist.org/article/western-marylanders-arrested-in-stop-cove-point-protest/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/western-marylanders-arrested-in-stop-cove-point-protest/#commentsThu, 27 Feb 2014 18:55:24 +0000http://grist.org/?p=227595]]>CUMBERLAND—A local Unitarian minister and three western Maryland residents were arrested just before noon today outside the Allegany County Courthouse in Cumberland for peacefully protesting Virginia-based Dominion Resources’ plan to build a liquefied natural gas export facility at Cove Point in southern Maryland. The protesters blocked the courthouse entrance to demand justice in the controversial federal handling of the massive $3.8 billion project, which would take nearly a billion cubic feet of gas per day from fracking wells across the Appalachian region, liquefy it on the Chesapeake Bay, and export it to Asia.

“I am here today as both a citizen of this beautiful state and as a minister deeply concerned that the proposed Cove Point gas export facility would take us in exactly the wrong direction,” said Reverend Terence Ellen, a minister at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Greater Cumberland. “It is inconceivable to me that a project so huge and so potentially harmful to our health and welfare would not even receive a full Environmental Impact Statement. We’re sitting in today because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is failing to serve the public.”

Joining Rev. Ellen were three young people, including two native residents of Cumberland who are students at Frostburg University and a local Frostburg resident who has seen the impacts of fracking elsewhere. With signs reading “Don’t Bring Fracking to Western Maryland” and “This Is Our Public Comment!” they specifically called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to conduct a full and fair Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Cove Point. They also appealed to Governor Martin O’Malley and members of Congress to break their silence and join them in demanding this most rigorous and participatory type of environmental review.

“I am risking arrest today in opposition to Cove Point and the pressure it would place on my home counties and on the mid-Atlantic at large to frack for gas,” said Benjamin Brown, an undergraduate student at Frostburg University and native of Cumberland. “I cannot remain idle as the places and things I love—fishing with my father, hiking with my friends, the splendor of these mountains—are exploited. I give up my temporary freedom in the hope that all leaders of our communities, including Governor Martin O’Malley, will rise to protect our collective future.”

All participants expressed deep concern that Dominion’s Cove Point plan would incite enormous pressure to open western Maryland to industrial fracking wells and new gas infrastructure, harming public health and transforming the rural landscape that sustains local livelihoods.

“An export facility at Cove Point would simply be another addition to a fossil fuel model that has drastically failed us,” said Desiree Bullard, a Cumberland native and a graduate student at Frostburg University. “The only way Dominion can possibly justify this plan is by hiding the truth. We can’t match Dominion’s money or influence, which is why we are peacefully sitting in today, appealing to our leaders for an Environmental Impact Statement that assesses the full impacts of Cove Point.”

“A thorough Environmental Impact Statement would undoubtedly prove that fracking, drilling and extracting is not a sustainable path for our communities,” said Gabriel Adam Echeverri of Frostburg. “I stand in solidarity with the residents of Cove Point, with the residents of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, and Ohio, and with my neighbors in opposition to any corporation that would take all for profit and leave nothing for progeny.”

Dominion’s Cove Point export plan has sparked growing opposition across Maryland in recent months, drawing a record crowd of environmental protesters to Baltimore last week as hearings began at the Maryland Public Service Commission. The state must sign off on Dominion’s permit to build a 130-megawatt gas-fired power plant to run on-site liquefaction operations, and the Public Service Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposal this Saturday in Calvert County.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is also weighing Dominion’s plan but, to date, has rejected calls for a full Environmental Impact Statement made by dozens of environmental, health and faith leaders, Maryland citizens, and Maryland’s Attorney General. Advocates contend that a less thorough and less participatory “Environmental Assessment” would fail to account for the domino effect of rising gas prices, expanded fracking, new pipelines and compressor stations and, ultimately, significant new carbon pollution that the Cove Point project could trigger region-wide.

This is a tough story to write about: the horror of contaminated water, the images of the mining families’ peoples’ faces, the children, the confederate flags, the beautiful mountains, the extreme gratitude of folks we gave water to – these are all so fresh that I can’t take it all in. Add to this the fact that I have in the past gone to this area to protest against the way of life of these very poor but good-hearted people, and . . .Well. I guess I am getting ahead of myself.

On Friday, February 28th, seven students and I from Asheville, NC took my pickup truck with the 210 gallon tank from the 2013 Walk full of water and three other cars loaded down with another with 250 gallons of water north to West Virginia. We also took with us the $400 we had fundraised locally, and drove to Whitesville in Boone County West Virginia where RAMPS has its office in a rundown old storefront. RAMPS stands for Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival, and has been a presence for some time now, leading some gritty and dangerous protests against Mountaintop removal, including 50 person occupation in 2012 of the Hobet mountaintop removal mine, the largest strip mine on the east coast. Twenty or so people were arrested in that action, and spent up to two weeks in jail, including one of the student organizers of this trip to deliver water. Now RAMPS is helping to coordinate delivery of donated clean water to residents of the area.

About a month ago on January 9 a corrupt and poorly run and poorly regulated chemical company called Freedom Industries spilled some of a highly toxic chemical (MCHM) from its storage tanks into the Elk River, contaminating the water supply of 300,000 people in 9 counties. Freedom Industries has a very checkered history and connections to the Koch Brothers. It stores and sells chemicals used to process coal from West Virginia mines. At first FEMA and West Virginia Dept of Environmental Protection got involved, and the governor declared the Elk River water unsafe for all drinking, cooking and bathing. But within a week or so they pulled out and declared the water safe for everyone except pregnant women and babies under three. In the meantime Freedom Industries has declared bankruptcy.

People who we met in the Whitesville area didn’t accept the reassurances coming from public authorities. Most complained that the water smelled, either with a licorice-like odor or of formaldehyde, which could be forming as a result of interactions between MCHM and other chemicals, plastics or metals in the pipes. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen. Some said the water looks murky. A few complained that the odors permeated their houses. One young woman, who has two young children said she was losing hair and had developed a rash. No one we met believed that the water was safe. Even in the Walmart, where we drove to buy bottled water, when I tried to buy some hot coffee on the cold, rainy Sunday morning, I was told that none was available because of contaminated water.

So in all we had the 450 gallons of water we had carried from Asheville and another 800 gallons of bottled water we purchased with our $400. When we arrived at the RAMPS office in Whitesville on Friday at midnight the RAMPS organizers Bagdhadi, Nat and De explained to us that on Saturday morning we might be working with a group from Texas called the Texas State Militia who do border patrolling in Texas and who had promised to bring 2000 gallons of water. So we talked about various scenarios of how to coordinate with them. As it turned out the Militia never showed up, and on Saturday morning feeling disorganized and chaotic, we were on our own.

First stop was Amazing Grace Covenant Church, a fairly new and spacious church in Seth, about 15 miles up route 3 from Whitesville. We set up our water operations in their front parking lot, and all day long people came in their cars, some with bottles of their own which we filled after answering the all important question of “where did this water come from?” Another group of us loaded bottles of water in two cars and went house to house in nearby Prenter Holler, a small neighborhood of trailers on Sand Lick Rd down the mountain from four coal mines. We knocked on doors of these old broken down homes with muddy mid-winter yards and asked people if they wanted free bottled water. No one turned us down. Many people were elderly and told us they had a hard time getting out. A couple of people said they were out of fresh clean water entirely and we had shown up just in time.

A little while later a student Emily and I set up my truck with its 210 gallons tank full of water in front of Tamara’s trailer on the corner of Prenter Rd and Sand Lick Rd near a creek. Tamara, who is a high-spirited 35 year old woman with a tattoo on her neck, and 4 or 6 children living with her, is a natural-born community organizer. She roused two of her teenage daughters from their beds and somehow inspired them to go knock on doors up the holler telling people to come and get the water. She also put word out on Facebook. All day long as huge 18 wheelers loaded with coal rushed past on Prenter Road, families drove up in pick-up trucks or all terrain vehicles or cars, and we filled their bottles with the water which, I explained, came from my spring in North Carolina. “You brought this water all the way from N.C.?” “Yeah, we came here yesterday.” “Oh, you are so kind. Thanks you for coming all this way.” Seldom in my life have I felt such gratitude.

One older man gave us $5 in appreciation. When I protested he replied, “You’ve gotta take it. Buy yourselves some coffee.” He must not have realized even Walmart was not making coffee with water from the Elk River.. One very thin 61 year old man stayed long enough to tell us his story: “27 years in the mines, and now I have black lung and a herniated disc.” A teenage high school girl spent 15 minutes talking with us: “I get all A’s in school.” She obviously loves school, and would be a teacher’s joy, and I could not help but wonder where this holler will take her in five or in ten years, or whether maybe she could get out. And a young guy in a small RV talked about how the fish in the streams have disappeared in the last few years.

Everyone seemed dazed about what had happened, and more or less resigned to this new way of life. No one knows how long the water emergency will last or how they will cope as days and weeks may become months. No one talked about it, and although some people clearly were angry at Freedom Industries or their public officials, no one talked about protest. A couple of people explained how until two or three years ago people had been drinking well water. However, the well water eventually became contaminated from coal slurry sludge which had been pumped into abandoned mines and then found its way into their ground water. And eventually their wells. At that point the public authorities insisted that people take water from the county. Now the public water supply is also too polluted for human consumption.

Immediately across the road was a fast moving stream, mostly covered with ice on this winter’s day, flowing at a rate of maybe 1000 gallons a minute This would be enough water for a small town, and yet, there’s no water for the 200 people in this holler to drink. And what about the animals and the fish? We could hear this water singing its way past us as a confederate flag flew above a nearby trailer and we filled people’s gallons jugs with water hauled all the way from North Carolina.

At the end of the day a few of us gathered back in the parking lot of Grace Covenant Church to fill a few more gallon jugs and to pack up our supplies. As we were about to leave a woman walked up to us across Route 3 and with a friendly smile asked: “Hi. I’m Julia. I want to introduce myself and ask you if you folks oppose coal?” We chatted amicably for several minutes, letting her know that yes some of us had even been arrested protesting against coal, but at the same time avoiding a heated argument. She never did say where she stood on the issue. As she left, she waved and repeated with the same smile: “I just wanted to know where you stand.”

Good question. For the last several days I’ve been pondering it. I have no questions about coal. It has to go. In North Carolina this week this has been made glaringly obvious to anyone willing to pay attention by the massive spill from a coal ash retainment pond owned by Duke Energy; up to 82 thousand tons of coal ash mixed with 27 million gallons of water has spilled into the Dan River, which is the public water supply for several nearby communities downstream. The river water and river bank has turned grey with the sludge, which contains a witches brew of poisons like arsenic, selenium, lead, and mercury.

At the same time though, my heart breaks for the miners and their families who live in Prenter Holler. How do I tell them that coal, which is the bedrock of their homes and the icon of their culture and the center of their way of life – how can I tell these very poor people that their bedrock is not sustainable, and that it is killing their mountains, and killing their fish, and will, if not contained, kill much of human civilization?

I don’t know how to answer Julia’s questions, or how to spend the gentleman’s $5, or what to say to the high school girl, or how to bring the fish back, or even how to get a hot coffee at Walmart.

(Steve Norris is an activist, farmer and teacher who lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina. In the last week he has turned his attention to the Dan River on tne NC/Va. border where a Duke Energy power plant spilled millions of gallons of coal ash waste into a public water supply.)

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/catastrophe-in-west-virginia-delivering-water-to-prenter-holler/feed/0Climate Movement on the Movehttp://grist.org/article/climate-movement-on-the-move/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/climate-movement-on-the-move/#commentsSat, 08 Feb 2014 19:58:53 +0000http://grist.org/?p=224589]]>“The fight to stop KXL will be one of the defining battles of our generation. A victory here will mark the close of the old carbon era, and the start of the new energy revolution—our revolution. America’s youth now have the chance to take up the torch, and light a new fire.” Conor Kennedy, youth climate activist

Revolutions are unpredictable things, literally. Was there anyone who thought that when Rosa Parks sat down in 1955 on that Montgomery, Al. bus that her action would lead to a powerful Freedom Movement which, in ten years, would force an end to legal segregation in the South? Who in their right mind would have bet that South African apartheid and the Soviet Union would both come to an end in the decade of the 90’s?

Could it be that we are literally right now, in February 2014, seeing a wave of street actions and other actions in the US that historians in the future will look back upon as the time when the “new energy revolution” began here in the United States?

What is happening that makes me think this is a possibility? It’s the fact that over a four week period, from February 3rd to March 2nd, there will be three days of visible, major actions on key climate issues.

February 3rd was the strongest rapid response set of actions the environmental movement has ever seen in the US. On that day, three days after the State Department released its oil industry-influenced Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, coordinated local actions were held in close to 300 places in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Estimates are that 10,000 people took place.

On February 20th a broad coalition of climate and no-fracking groups are coming together for what will likely be the largest environmental demonstration ever in the city of Baltimore, Md. They will be marching and rallying against the proposed natural gas export terminal in Cove Point, Md. which, if built, would accelerate fracking throughout the Marcellus Shale region. It would make it much harder to maintain the moratoriums on fracking in New York, the Delaware River Basin and Maryland. Mobilizing for this action is taking place in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, DC and Virginia and is being actively built by national groups like the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, 350.org and Credo Mobile.

And on March 2nd hundreds of students and young people are expected to risk arrest in an act of civil disobedience at the White House to pressure President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The day before the “XL Dissent” protest, students will meet for a non-violent direct action training and fossil fuel divestment conference. The sit-in at the White House will be the largest act of civil disobedience by young people in the recent history of the environmental movement. The protest is meant to send a clear signal to President Obama that the base that helped elect him sees Keystone XL as a decision that will define his entire legacy.

It’s a big deal to see young people stepping forward to engage in mass civil disobedience, but it’s not coming out of nowhere. Last October the fourth Power Shift gathering of young people, 6,000 strong, took place in Pittsburgh, Pa. The three gatherings before had been held in DC, but this one was held in Pittsburgh primarily to make a loud statement against fracking in a state and a region where it is wreaking major damage.

The climate movement that is undertaking these actions over this four-week period is a movement that gets it on the need to transition as quickly as possible off of all of the dirty fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas. It gets it that such a transition will be a positive thing not just for our destabilized climate but for millions of people who will find meaningful jobs in the renewable energy- and energy efficiency-grounded economy that must replace our current fossil fuel-dominated economy. It gets it that the specific issues of front line communities, mainly people of color and working class communities, those most impacted by the air, water and land pollution from the operations of the fossil fuel industry, must be consistently prominent alongside the climate issues.

It’s rare that the month of February is a time for mass mobilization by issue-oriented groups. The fact that it is happening on the climate issue, the fact that it includes planned civil disobedience on a large scale, and the fact that these actions will be followed by others, I am certain, to keep building the momentum is a big deal.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/climate-movement-on-the-move/feed/0Cove Point is “Keystone” of the Easthttp://grist.org/article/cove-point-is-keystone-of-the-east/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/cove-point-is-keystone-of-the-east/#commentsWed, 29 Jan 2014 17:44:40 +0000http://grist.org/?p=222796]]>For those of you in the Marcellus Shale region, this is an urgent request that you mark your calendar for Thursday, February 20th and make plans to get to Baltimore and bring as many people with you as you can.

Why? Because fracking fighters like you from across the Mid-Atlantic are converging on February 20th to take a stand against the biggest single gas drilling threat we face: Cove Point.

This proposed $3.8 billion export terminal would take fracked gas from throughout the Marcellus Shale, liquefy it on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and ship it to Asia. If Cove Point gets built by mega-polluter Dominion Resources, then the increased pressure to frack throughout your state will be ENORMOUS. As will the pulse of new planet-heating pollution that wrecks our climate. Bill McKibben calls Cove Point “one of the most important fossil fuel fights in America.”

Whether you’re retired, you’re a student, or you have any flexibility at your job – you’re needed in Baltimore at noon on February 20th.

February 20th is a critical date to join this growing fight in Maryland, and draw a region-wide line in the sand. That’s when the state Public Service Commission, headquartered in Baltimore, will begin its official deliberations over key permits for Cove Point.

We’ll rally downtown with unforgettable speakers like Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Maya van Rossum of Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Karen Feridun of Berks Gas Truth. Then, with music, drumming, and lots of noise, we’ll march to the Public Service Commission, urging them to reject Dominion’s dirty permit. Since Governor O’Malley’s Baltimore offices in are in the same building, our voices will reach him, too!

Dominion’s plan is radical: to pipe fracked gas from across the Marcellus to the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland, liquefy it to minus 260 F, and pour it onto tanker ships for the 6,000-mile journey to India and Japan. The “life cycle” greenhouse gas emissions make exported fracked gas worse than coal.Plus the pressure to frack in your state surges.

And help us forward this alert far and wide to everyone you know who’s concerned about fracking where you live.

We can stop Cove Point. But to take on Dominion — and their slick ads and political influence — we need to act fast and get big. We need a grassroots movement that reaches as far and wide as the potential fracking wells, pipelines, compressor stations and “liquefaction” plants this export project would trigger.

Hope to see you in Baltimore!

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/cove-point-is-keystone-of-the-east/feed/0Election Year Surprise from Enviro Groupshttp://grist.org/article/election-year-surprise-from-enviro-groups/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/election-year-surprise-from-enviro-groups/#commentsSun, 19 Jan 2014 20:11:21 +0000http://grist.org/?p=221241]]>“In the speech, you referenced that in the past year you had put forward an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, yet noted that we cannot just drill our way out of our energy and climate challenge. We believe that continued reliance on an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy would be fundamentally at odds with your goal of cutting carbon pollution and would undermine our nation’s capacity to respond to the threat of climate disruption.”

On January 16th 18 national environmental organizations sent a letter to Barack Obama in which they essentially called him out for his inconsistency, to put it mildly, when it comes to action on the climate crisis. They criticized him head-on for his “all of the above” approach. They described it as “a compromise that future generations can’t afford.” They pointed out that “it fails to prioritize clean energy and solutions that have already begun to replace fossil fuels” and that “it increases environmental injustice while it locks in the extraction of fossil fuels that will inevitably lead to a catastrophic climate future.” And there was more.

These are not new ideas in the climate movement, not at all. But what was new about this letter was the breadth of the groups which signed it. Some were not surprising, like Friends of the Earth and the Energy Action Coalition. But others were, especially the corporate-friendly Environmental Defense Fund (and I use “corporate-friendly” in an objective, not pejorative, sense).

This letter brought back personal memories from 10 years ago when, as a result of the August, 2003 heat wave which hit western Europe, leading to 30,000 or more deaths, I decided that I needed to do more personally on the climate issue. I looked around, trying to find a group which was working in a systematic and serious way on this issue, and there were very few to be found. The major environmental groups, in particular, had their priorities elsewhere.

That has clearly changed from a decade ago, something which began to happen soon after Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

An Election Year Surprise

It is significant that these groups decided to put out this public criticism of Obama in a Congressional election year.

Almost all of the groups which signed this letter are supporters, explicitly or implicitly, of the Democratic Party. For those among them who make endorsements of people running for office, my guess is that somewhere between 95 and 98% of them have been of Democrats. Many have tended to be very careful about their public criticism of Democrats like Obama who, while not on the progressive wing of that party, has done some things on climate and who is certainly not a climate denier.

This statement sure seems to be a sign that this approach is changing. The urgency of the deepening climate crisis is driving what, on the surface, seems to be a less political, more issue-oriented approach.

Or is it? Is it the case that pulling back from support of lesser-evil Democrats against climate-denier Republicans is a “political miscalculation,” something which will make it more likely that Republicans take the Senate this November and possibly increase their majority of House seats?

I think there are solid reasons to think otherwise. One recent example is what just happened in the Governor’s race in the state of Virginia, not exactly a blue state. There Terry McAuliffe, a mainstream Democrat with more than his share of personal negatives and vulnerabilities, defeated arch-climate denier Ken Cuccinelli. He did so in part by openly challenging Cuccinelli on his extreme climate positions and with the accepted support of climate philanthropist Tom Steyer’s independent ad campaign highlighting the climate issue.

And then there’s Obama’s Presidential victory in 2008. Throughout that campaign Obama talked consistently about the climate issue. John McCain and the Republicans didn’t take him on as he did so. And Obama won.

How will Obama and key energy people in his administration like DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz respond? Will they stick to their head-in-the-sand, all of the above course? Or will Obama, ever-sensitive to the political winds, realize that he has to shift his position if only because Democrats need the votes and at least some enthusiasm from people who see climate as a major issue?

A lot will depend upon the groups which signed the letter and the broader climate movement. In every way we can, we must keep up the pressure that leads to growing numbers of grassroots victories over the fossil fuel industry—like preventing approval of KXL and coal exports from the northwest and a defeat for the efforts to build an export terminal for fracked gas at Cove Point, Md. We must also support candidates who are strong on climate, bring pressure on those who should be and call out climate deniers.

Let’s make 2014 a political tipping point year. This statement is a good sign that, on climate, it could very well be.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/election-year-surprise-from-enviro-groups/feed/0Fasting for the Philippineshttp://grist.org/article/fasting-for-the-philippines/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/fasting-for-the-philippines/#commentsWed, 13 Nov 2013 16:44:41 +0000http://grist.org/?p=207863]]>The Climate Action Network International (http://www.climatenetwork.org/press-release/civil-society-announce-they-will-fast-solidarity-philippines-yeb-sano) has organized an international fast in solidarity with Yeb Sano, the lead climate negotiator for the Philippines at the 19th United Nations Climate Conference in Warsaw, Poland. He said in a speech there Monday, on the first day of the conference, that: “In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home and with my brother who has not had food for the last three days, in all due respect Mr. President, and I mean no disrespect for your kind hospitality, I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate. This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this COP until a meaningful outcome is in sight.”

I woke up on Tuesday to find my mind and heart focusing on the Philippines and on Yeb Sano’s action. I was pleased to learn that CAN International had taken this initiative in support, and I’ve decided to join their fast in solidarity with him, eating no solid food and consuming only liquids for as long as his fast continues. Others may want to join and fast for a day, a few days or until the end of the climate conference.

Already, on the second day, I’m experiencing what I’ve experienced on other long fasts–how not eating food brings me closer to, keeps me from forgetting, suffering humanity, right now those in the Philippines.

But I am undertaking this solidarity fast with Yeb Sano and the people of the Philippines not just because it is personally the right thing for me to do right now. I’m doing so in the hope that others will join in this action. Large numbers of people around the world fasting with him, demanding that the nations of the world get serious about the deepening climate crisis, could have some impact on what takes place in Poland, and it can help to build a stronger international climate movement.

I will also be contributing money, money I will not be using for food, to the rescue and rebuilding efforts in the Philippines.

There are moments in history where, all of a sudden, unexpected events and actions move humanity forward. We need to be alert for such moments. I’m hoping this is one.

(Contact Ria Voorhaar, CAN International’s communications director, at rvoorhaar@climatenetwork.org, for more information or to join the fast.)

Over the past few years, since the death in 2010 of cap-and-trade legislation in the US Senate and the emergence a year later of a broadly-based noKXL movement, there’s been an upturn in successful working unity among many of the groups that make up the overall climate movement. This is hopeful, and it makes possible some significant strides forward, it seems to me, between now and Election Day 2014.

Election Day next year is a key marker, and I would argue that this is true whether you’re a big believer in electoral activism or a radical anti-hierarchy horizontalist. The recent over-the-top actions of the ultra-rightist Republicans that shut down the government and almost led to a US financial default are just the latest in a series of actions by the climate-denier Republicans that reveal how dangerous, how much of a serious threat to forward progress they really are. 2014 has to be a year that this threat is reduced, that a decisive, political turning point is reached, by way of defeats at the ballot box.

Our success over the next year will be measured in large part by what happens with the US Senate and House. It will be a bad year, for example, if the climate-denier-heavy Republican Party maintains control of the House and takes control of the Senate. It will be a better year if the Senate stays Democratic and the House is either taken over by the Democrats or they significantly reduce the Republicans’ current 33-seat majority. It will be best if that happens and a larger percentage than at present of those who are elected to Congress, whether Democrat, Republican or Independent, are elected after making climate and renewable energy a major issue in their campaigns, either because they personally get it or because they have been pushed by the visible activism of the climate movement and independent climate activism in their House or Senate districts to do so.

Visible climate activism and some victories, like on KXL, are absolutely critical in 2014. They’re important all the time in order to keep enlarging and strengthening the movement, but they’re particularly important in an election year. This is the case both to make climate issues part of the election campaigns and debates but also because, as many of us are fully aware, we cannot count upon President Obama or the Democratic Party to do what is urgently needed as far as a renewable energy revolution.

It’s a good thing that Obama, not Romney, is in the White House, and it’s a good thing that Harry Reid, not Mitch McConnell, is the Senate leader, but the fossil fuel industry, particularly the oil and gas industry, has significant influence over both sides of the aisle and in the Executive Office. Barack Obama, let us remember, has been a consistent and vocal supporter of fracking despite all of the proven health and safety impacts on people and other living things near fracking wells. He’s done this even as many studies, including by government agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have shown that methane leakage throughout the lifecycle of fracked gas probably means that its greenhouse gas footprint is close to, as bad as, or worse than that of coal.

This is why another objective for 2014 should be to strengthen the climate movement’s connections with labor, communities of color, the women’s movement, the lgbt movement, youth groups, farmers, etc. This country needs a political uprising by the disenfranchised majority. Polls show that as a people we are very angry and upset about the direction of the country, and many are ready for a new, independent political movement. A recent Pew Center poll reported that 81% are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country.

A key priority within that multi-issue movement must be a rapid shift to a jobs-creating, renewable energy revolution, with a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry, and many of us from the climate movement being there will ensure that this is a priority of that coming movement.

2014 can be a really big year. Ultra-right Republican overreach, combined with a continuing-to-grow, unified, activist and electorally-oriented climate movement working with others, provides us with new openings and possibilities. History is calling; let’s rise to the occasion!

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/2014-climate-movement-strategy/feed/0Democracy in action: 300 enviros, unionists and locals “town hall” together on proposed LNG export terminalhttp://grist.org/article/democracy-in-action-300-enviros-unionists-and-locals-town-hall-together-on-proposed-lng-export-terminal/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/democracy-in-action-300-enviros-unionists-and-locals-town-hall-together-on-proposed-lng-export-terminal/#commentsThu, 24 Oct 2013 18:11:21 +0000http://grist.org/?p=204312]]>The first town hall meeting concerning the risks of the proposed Cove Point LNG export terminal in Maryland was held Tuesday night, October 23. It was a big and rousing success. At least 300 people attended, most of them local residents. It was held at the Southern Community Center in Lusby, Md. in Calvert County, just a few miles from where Dominion Resources wants to build an industrial terminal to export fracked natural gas — piped in from Appalachia — and ship it to India and Japan. The $3.8 billion facility would chill the gas to 270 degrees below zero, turning it into liquid for 1000-foot-long shipping tankers coming into the Bay. It would generate 3.3 million tons of CO2 pollution per year. (You can learn more about the health and environmental risks of exporting fracked gas from Maryland at http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3726:stop-fracked-gas-exports-at-cove-point&Itemid=18)

By 6:30 before the 7 pm town hall meeting, the room was filling up fast. By 6:45 it was clear the room we had reserved was not big enough, and we were scrambling to find and set up more chairs, enlisting the participation of those already in the room. Even after we removed a partition to double the size of the room, it was standing room only when we got started about 7:10.

The meeting went on for over two hours, with all listening intently to the four speakers, followed by good questions and statements after the speakers finished. It was a productive and enlightening community conversation for all in attendance.

Mike Tidwell of CCAN provided detailed information on what is planned, using Dominion Resources’ own numbers, showing that this would be a carbon pollution nightmare for the state. (See Washington Post op ed here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-cant-let-maryland-become-a-greenhouse-gas-hot-spot/2013/10/18/ae514a32-34f6-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html)
Jean Marie Neal, a member of the Cove of Calvert Home Owner Association, spoke of the many negative impacts for local residents, including safety, noise and air pollution issues as well as impacts on property values. Fred Tutman, Patuxent Riverkeeper and a 20-year activist on the Patuxent River, spoke of the environmental impacts such a project would cause in the area. And Moneen Nasmith, Associate Attorney with Earthjustice, explained how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) plans to come to a decision on whether or not to approve this project. She underlined that, as of now, they are NOT planning to use a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement process which, among other things, would provide citizens more opportunity for comment and more transparency in the FERC process.

It was clear in the question-and-answer and open discussion part of the meeting that the vast majority of people present had serious concerns. A local waterman, for example, stood up and explained his opposition to the project because of water and air pollution concerns.

The size of the turnout shows the controversial nature of this proposed project and the depth of concerns in the immediate area. This concern is spreading through the state as people fear that approval of this LNG export terminal would lead to fracking in Allegheny and Garrett counties and more pipelines, compressor stations and other fracking infrastructure in many other counties.

A final note: about ¼ of those present were union members, primarily from Iron Workers Local 5 and from throughout the state, who came with green flyers in support of the Dominion project. But over the course of the meeting these workers learned of the strong local opposition to the facility and why people have so many concerns. They also learned of the vast number of potential jobs available to the building trades unions through wind and solar energy production and build-out in Maryland. By the end of the meeting some of the workers were asking questions about this potential, clearly interested in the possibilities.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/democracy-in-action-300-enviros-unionists-and-locals-town-hall-together-on-proposed-lng-export-terminal/feed/0Building a Culture of Mass Resistance to Climate Disruptionhttp://grist.org/article/building-a-culture-of-mass-resistance-to-climate-disruption/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/building-a-culture-of-mass-resistance-to-climate-disruption/#commentsMon, 14 Oct 2013 15:09:38 +0000http://grist.org/?p=202456]]>Without question, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was an organization essential to the Southern-based civil rights movement of the 1960’s. If SNCC had not come forward, that movement never would have won the victories that it did. SNCC was youth-based and youth-led. It was the most uncompromising, most risk-taking, most participatory and democratic and most radical of all of the civil rights organizations working in the 1960’s in the deep South.

SNCC grew most directly out of student sit-ins at segregated public restaurants in early 1960; most of the local groups which came together at its founding conference in April of that year were involved with that classic nonviolent tactic. But within months, emerging out of the perceived needs of the movement, SNCC began to shift to a grassroots organizing approach. In the words of Charles Cobb in an article to be found at http://www.sncclegacyproject.org/legacy.html:

“By the fall of 1961 SNCC had established two significant organizing projects: Southwest Mississippi and Southwest Georgia. Both regions, rural and containing majority Black populations, were characterized by violent and vicious opposition to Black voting rights with terror and reprisal encouraged and supported by state and local government in response to any civil rights activity. . . Black people had the numbers; if they could get the vote they could begin to dismantle the system of oppression that had dominated Black life for all of the 20th century; indeed, since the abandonment of Reconstruction in 1876. Mississippi NAACP leader Amzie Moore put this on the table at SNCC’s second conference in October 1960. And SNCC’s black belt organizing efforts increasingly revolved around voter registration. . . Out of this work emerged new voices from the grassroots like Mississippi’s Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper who became a powerful national spokesperson for civil rights. She was also, at 46-years-of-age in 1962, SNCC’s oldest field secretary. This kind of close relationship with people at the grassroots would characterize SNCC during its entire existence.”

As a result of SNCC’s work, as well as that of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other groups, growing numbers of African American grassroots people began to step forward. Groups of people would go together to the local voter registration office to attempt to register. Usually this led to violence, arrests and/or other forms of repression on the part of the local white power structure or local white racists. But the movement just kept growing despite, even because, of this repression. The right to vote—the right to be treated equally—freedom: these were ideas whose time had come.

I was reminded of this history recently when reading an excellent article just published in The Nation magazine, “The Grassroots Battle Against Big Oil,” by Wen Stephenson http://www.thenation.com/article/176556/grassroots-battle-against-big-oil?page=full#. It is an article about the evolution of the Tar Sands Blockade, a group based primarily in Texas. Begun two and a half years ago by Rising Tide North Texas and others, they have developed from a group primarily taking action to physically disrupt the building of the southern Oklahoma-to-Texas leg of the Keystone XL pipeline to something different, if similar, today. In the words of Ron Seifert, one of Tar Sands Blockade’s founders:

“The idea that you have to go into where the problem is worst—like Mississippi during the civil rights era—you have to get in there and get a foothold. We hope we can empower local-led action and resistance [already happening with groups like Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services]. In Houston itself, there are literally millions of people who are being poisoned. We should be able to empower folks here to rise up and defend their own homes.

“The industry has shown every intention of escalating the climate crisis beyond certain tipping points, and people in these communities are affected by the industry right now, in desperate ways. We need to ask ourselves as organizers, ‘What does escalation look like? What could possibly be too escalated?’ Physically blockading infrastructure is a great place to start that conversation. We can still build and cultivate a culture of resistance and action, capable of escalating to the point of shutting this stuff down in the future.”

It’s not either/or. It’s not serious nonviolent action vs. day-to-day, longer-term work with local people. It has to be both/and, with the objective of not just small-group civil disobedience but mass cd, with hundreds or thousands taking part.

Another immediate front of the climate movement is in Michigan where a group similar to Tar Sands Blockade needs our support right now. The group is the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS). They’ve been combining community education with direct action to fight the unpermitted expansion of a major tar sands oil pipeline, the Enbridge pipeline. Enbridge is doing this under the guise of rebuilding from their disastrous 2010 spill of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River. Local activists believe that Enbridge plans to double its capacity. This summer, Chris Wahmhoff of MI CATS used a skateboard to wedge himself into the pipeline and shut it down for a day. A month later, other MI CATS locked down to construction equipment to shut things down again.

As Tim DeChristopher has explained, “All of them have been charged with felonies for this nonviolent civil disobedience, and Chris along with Vicci Hamlin, Lisa Leggio and Barb Carter from the second action have all decided to take their cases to a jury trial. Civil disobedience has recently been embraced by the mainstream of the climate movement, but these brave four in Michigan remind us that civil disobedience is about more than a photo op. In addition to being a tactic for putting pressure on those in power, when it is carried through all the way civil disobedience is one of our most powerful tools for education and movement building. I know from experience that a jury trial is a fantastic organizing opportunity, but it takes resources to be able to take advantage of that opportunity. These four are fully committed and willing to sacrifice, and they need our support now.”

The idea of getting off of fossil fuels and onto a serious, jobs-creating, renewable energy path is an idea whose time has come. Our job is to accelerate this process by effective, determined, persistent, cutting-edge activism and organizing among everyone who we can reach, particularly those most impacted by the fossil fuel industry. Let’s remember the lessons of history and organize!

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/building-a-culture-of-mass-resistance-to-climate-disruption/feed/0The Power of Multi-Day Walks and Rideshttp://grist.org/article/the-power-of-multi-day-walks-and-rides/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/the-power-of-multi-day-walks-and-rides/#commentsThu, 03 Oct 2013 21:55:14 +0000http://grist.org/?p=201108]]>Over the last two years, as part of my work on the climate crisis, I’ve been part of two multi-day bike rides and two multi-day walks, all of which were valuable in a number of ways. The two bike rides were the five-day, 300 mile, NYC to DC Climate Rides in 2012 and 2013, and the two walks were the 50-mile March on Blair Mountain in 2011 and the 100-mile Walk for our Grandchildren this past July.

All of these actions had significant impacts upon the people who took part in them, including me. Combining action on an issue with strenuous physical activity over a number of days with like-minded sisters and brothers has a way of deepening the commitment to a particular cause by those involved.

Based on my experiences, I would say that this happens because during these walks and rides a person meets new people who have similar beliefs and a shared commitment. As a result, new friendships can easily develop. Community-building is at the heart of these multi-day actions. And in this insecure and often-difficult world, to make these kind of connections is no small thing.

Walking and riding also encourage personal meditation, which is a good thing.

These actions have ripple effects. Others not taking part but who hear about them, or who see the walkers or riders as they go by, are often affected by the willingness of people to undertake such actions despite the physical challenges involved.

The most recent action of this kind for me was the Climate Ride from NYC to Washington, D.C., a 300 mile trip over a five day period of time. It was not easy, although there were many special moments as we rode through the often-beautiful countryside and sometimes gloried in long downhill rides. Those helped to counter-balance the many hills, some very steep and/or long, over which we had to ride.

Because this was such an out-of-the-ordinary experience, I was able to get a local media outlet in my town to carry my daily blog, and I know others were also able to get local media coverage. Though we didn’t get any major media, these smaller-market, more localized forms of media coverage are very much part of the process of movement-building.

Indeed, a person who I met on the Climate Ride made a comment at one point about how this action helped her to feel part of a movement. For people whose work to make a living may not put them in frequent contact with movement realities, these actions, as is also true for conferences and demonstrations, are morale builders and strengtheners.

Mass movements on other issues and in other countries have often used long, multi-day walks as an effective tactic. For the Indian independence movement, Gandhi’s salt march to the sea had a huge impact. For the civil rights movement of the 60’s, the Selma to Montgomery march was a very big deal. The American Indian Movement held a successful “Longest Walk” across the United States in 1978, and another one was held in 2008. The organization 350.org grew in part out of a five-day walk in Vermont in September, 2007. And there are other examples.

A Great March for Climate Action is being organized for next year. As described at climatemarch.org, “The goal of the Great March for Climate Action is to change the heart and mind of the American people, our elected leaders and people across the world into acting now to address the climate crisis.” The march will leave from Los Angeles on March 1 and walk nearly 3,000 miles across the country to Washington, D.C. It was initiated by former Iowa state legislator Ed Fallon.

Next year will also see Climate Rides on the west coast and east coast, in May and September.

Walking and biking are both healthy activities that are good for you. Combining them with action for a better world has been proven to be effective. Let’s keep moving!

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/the-power-of-multi-day-walks-and-rides/feed/0Marching on DC for Voting Rights, Racial Justice and Climate Actionhttp://grist.org/article/marching-on-dc-for-voting-rights-racial-justice-and-climate-action/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/marching-on-dc-for-voting-rights-racial-justice-and-climate-action/#commentsMon, 26 Aug 2013 22:19:56 +0000http://grist.org/?p=194048]]>On April 4, 1967, exactly a year before he was killed, Dr. King named ‘materialism’ as one of the deadly triplets afflicting America: ‘When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.’

“At that point, he did not yet know how deadly to all of Earth materialist greed would become—the materialist greed of giant corporations selling fossil fuels the way a cabal of drug lords would sell their deadly drugs. And, like other drug lords, using their wealth and power to try to prevent the urgently-needed shift to wind, solar, and truly clean sources of energy.

“Half a century ago, it was the murder of civil rights workers, deaths in Vietnam, the suffering of garbage workers in Memphis — as well as the Dream of racial justice — that called Dr. King into action. Today it is the climate crisis that has come upon us, — bringing famines, floods, fires, asthma, and devastations on whole nations — and the Dream of a shared and sustainable abundance that must call us into action, walking the path he walked.”

The evening before the historic 50th anniversary commemorative March on Washington I took the DC Metro train to the Lincoln Memorial to take part in a peace vigil organized by United for Peace and Justice. While there I ran into and was interviewed by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash, hosts of the radio program “Building Bridges” on WBAI in New York City. After explaining why I was there, including my intention the next day to raise up the issue of the climate crisis among the crowd, Ken asked if this issue was going to be addressed from the stage. I told him that I thought that it would be, even though it wasn’t included as an issue in the material I had seen publicizing the rally. In all honesty, that “thought” was really more of a hope; I hardly even knew who most of the speakers were going to be.

This reality was a weakness, for sure, and not the only one. But the fact is that whenever tens of thousands of people, or more, gather together in support of progressive values and demands, it is a good thing. This is the bottom line of what the historic 50th anniversary March on Washington a couple of days ago was about.

It was particularly significant that this was a mobilization by the African American community, with support from non-black allies, and that this community came out in such large numbers. It was a sign that there is something important happening among the grassroots in response to the Trayvon Martin verdict, the Supreme Court’s roll-back-voting-rights decision, other attacks on the right to vote and continuing racial and economic injustice.

And from what I saw, it was one of the largest progressive mobilizations to DC in years, since Barack Obama became President in January, 2009. Pictures of Saturday’s rally that I saw afterwards looked very similar to the pictures I’ve seen of the one in 1963, with people massed together all the way from the Lincoln Memorial back to the Washington Monument grounds. Estimates for that one were 250,000; I’d say an accurate estimate for this one would be 200,000 or more.

I spent several hours traveling among the masses of people lining the north side of the Reflecting Pool, around the War Memorial on the east side and along the roads leading to the King Memorial on the south side. I did so with a sister climate activist from Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, each of us holding one side of a 10 foot long pole on our shoulder with two banners hanging from it, both of which addressed the issue of the climate crisis. One said, “Climate Change is a Moral Issue;” the other said, “God Calls to Us All to Heal the Earth–Stop Burning Coal, Oil and Gas.”

The response from the people who saw us was very gratifying. There wasn’t a single disparaging word or negative comment. Lots of people, probably hundreds, took a picture of our banner, and in some cases people came over to us, got behind the banner and had someone take a picture of the banner with them in it.

I’ve heard similar things since from others who also carried climate-oriented messages. One of them, a 350.org group from Loudon County, Virginia, carried a “Wake Up to Climate Change” message with a picture of the Earth with flames. Reportedly, it received “a LOT of attention.”

But it wasn’t just from among the crowd that the climate message was put forward on August 24th.

I never heard any of the speeches from the stage, as was true for what seemed like about half of the crowd based upon my travels that day. The sound system just wasn’t strong enough. That was a shame, without question, but I’ve learned since that there were at least three speakers who said something about climate: Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Corey Booker and Jeffrey Sachs. This is a very welcome development.

August 24th, for all of its weaknesses, was a sign that the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. is alive, “the Dream of a shared and sustainable abundance that must call us into action, walking the path he walked.” Yes, we must.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/marching-on-dc-for-voting-rights-racial-justice-and-climate-action/feed/0The Climate Movement and the 2014 Electionshttp://grist.org/article/the-climate-movement-and-the-2014-elections/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/the-climate-movement-and-the-2014-elections/#commentsSun, 18 Aug 2013 19:17:52 +0000http://grist.org/?p=192929]]>Here’s a thought: hundreds of local climate activists around the country running for federal, state and local offices in 2014, doing so in a connected way and with solutions to the climate crisis at the top of the list of issues they consistently talk about.

Given the urgency of the crisis, this seems to me to be something we should begin to seriously consider. The use of this tactic has the potential to broaden out and strengthen the movement; running for office is an effective way to reach and interact with large numbers of people. And it is definitely to be desired that more and more people are elected to office who appreciate the seriousness of our situation.

An initiative like this should in no way be seen as an alternative to the absolutely essential work of grassroots organizing and the organization of visible, demonstrative actions. All of these different tactics, if done well, are complementary and mutually reinforcing.

I’ve heard no discussion of this idea within the climate activist circles I’m part of. Instead, the two main approaches to elections are either to reject electoral activity as essentially a waste of energy and resources, or to support, directly or indirectly, a Democrat, even if that Democrat rarely speaks about the climate issue—e.g., Barack Obama in 2012—or is weak when it comes to support of action commensurate to the seriousness of the problem.

There is also some support for Green Party or other independent candidates who have very progressive positions on the climate issue and have won local elections in a number of places but have had few victories on state or federal levels.

What I’m proposing is NOT an alternative political party, although I can see that some of the people who might decide to run for office would want to do so as independents. After all, roughly a third of the U.S. electorate see themselves as independents.”

My expectation is that most of the people who would run for office as climate candidates would do so as part of a Democratic Party primary election, with perhaps a much smaller number doing so within a Republican Party primary. This would be the case since the main purpose of this electoral project would be to raise up and educate broadly about the climate crisis and the need to rapidly move from fossil fuels to renewables and efficiency. This would both build the movement and lead to more people elected to office with strong climate action positions, either because climate candidates win or because their running and the support they build pushes the eventual winners to be stronger than they would have been otherwise.

Running as a third party candidate for state or federal office would add a political burden that very few independents have been able to overcome as far as electoral victories, or even respectable vote totals, on these levels over the last half-century or so.

Electoral victories in 2014 by climate candidates would likely be minimal, but I don’t consider this to be a problem. What would be a problem would be if the climate candidates, overall, did a poor job of campaigning. They would need to do a good job talking about the issues, explaining how action on climate is connected to other major issues like job creation, economic development, clean air and water and healthier communities, especially for low-income and people of color communities most often impacted by the polluting ways of the fossil fuel industry.

http://grist.org/article/the-climate-movement-and-the-2014-elections/feed/0Walking for Our Grandchildrenhttp://grist.org/article/walking-for-our-grandchildren/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/walking-for-our-grandchildren/#commentsMon, 29 Jul 2013 12:06:37 +0000http://grist.org/?p=189118]]>From Friday, July 19th to Saturday, July 27th, through high heat, humidity, lightning storms and more, scores of people walked from Camp David to Harpers Ferry to the White House. Some walked the entire route, about 100 miles. This was an historic Walk for Our Grandchildren (http://2013walkforourgrandchildren.org) as part of 350.org’s Summer Heat campaign.

On the 26th 55 people were arrested inside the corporate office building in downtown DC which houses the office of Environmental Resources Management. ERM is the company which did the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the State Department on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. This analysis said that the pipeline would have no impact on the climate.

ERM was chosen to conduct this analysis even though they have been a member of the American Petroleum Institute and have done work for Trans Canada and many other Big Oil companies. Despite a legal requirement that they do so, none of this was disclosed on the State Department’s disclosure form.

The poem below was written after the Walk ended with a march to and rally of about 500 people at Lafayette Park, across from the White House.

For My Sister and Brother Walkers:
I Love You

A friend of mine asked me yesterday,
as we were waiting/singing/chanting
to get into Lafayette Park,
if I thought we were going to
solve/get past the climate crisis.

And I said:
We will
if humankind finally learns
that love is the
operating principle
of the universe.

I believe this.

As we joined hands
for the last time yesterday,
after our nine days together
through heat and humidity,
and lighting/thunder storms
and the threat of them,
and blisters,
cramps,
sweat, sweat, sweat,
wet sleeping bags and tents,
(for some) staying in jail until 2 am,
waiting/singing/chanting close to an hour
to get into Lafayette Park—

As we joined hands
under the trees,
feeling the wind,
feeling our connection,
our love for one another
and the deeper love for the earth
which came to us as a gift
over these last nine days,
I wondered who would speak up
or lead us in singing or chanting.

And as Steve began to speak
I expected a chant,
remembering, I guess,
the chant he led
the last time we all gathered
in a circle Wednesday evening
at Seneca Landing,
joining the young people
who began it,
all sitting quietly together
all of a sudden,
and remembering something from my life,
something my family does
after a larger family reunion
or a significant event of some kind
when we each share
the high points—

Remembering that,
feeling that,
as I sat
with this new family,
as Kendall described it,
I said,
Why don’t we go around the circle
and people share their
most memorable moments
up to that point in time.

(This was a turning point for the Walk
since the next day we would
divide into two groups,
one to continue walking,
the other to prepare for
and take nonviolent, risk-arrest, direct action.)

And we shared.
And Steve led a chant.

But he didn’t do that yesterday.

Yesterday he did his best
to lead us in song,
choking up but
being picked up
by others

And we made beautiful music together.

There in Lafayette Park.

At the end of the 2013 Walk for Our Grandchildren.

So many times I’ve cried
or held back tears
over this memorable week.

Lilly told me late Friday night
out on the steps
in front of St. Stephens
that she had cried
three times
during the action
Friday afternoon.

Young woman Anna
choked up
as we hugged
in the church
before leaving
on the march.

For me,
my tears
were not, are not
tears of sadness,
not mainly,
though some sadness
was/is there.

Some emotional and physical exhaustion,
some emotional release.

My tears are mainly tears of appreciation,
of thanks to the Great Spirit of Love
which rules the universe,
appreciation that I was able to be part
of this unforgettable, powerful,
moving nine days.

From the bottom of my heart,
with the deepest of feelings,
sister and brother walkers,
I love you.

Ted

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/walking-for-our-grandchildren/feed/0Obama’s Lincoln Moment?http://grist.org/article/obamas-lincoln-moment/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/obamas-lincoln-moment/#commentsSun, 30 Jun 2013 18:42:42 +0000http://grist.org/?p=184409]]>“Those of us in positions of responsibility will need to be less concerned with the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned with the judgment of our children.”
Barack Obama, June 29 national radio address

I’ll admit it—I was moved several times as I watched and listened to President Barack Obama’s major speech on the climate crisis on June 25th. As much as I have been angered so many times over the last 4 ½ years since he came into office by the weakness of many of his actions and his pretty-close-to public silence on climate, it is no small thing that the U.S. President, an essential actor if we’re to have any chance of avoiding worldwide, catastrophic climate change, has clearly turned a corner and come out rhetorically strong.

To have Obama speaking for 50 minutes on the subject—to hear him put forward a solid analysis of why this is such a critical issue—to hear him go aggressively after the climate deniers (“we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society”)—and to hear him say, unexpectedly, about the Keystone XL pipeline that it should be built “only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution,” which of course it does, big time—to hear all of this was a very big deal.

What about his specific plans? A number of them are important, without a doubt: directing EPA to come up with a regulatory regime to reduce CO2 from all, both new and existing, power plants; active government support for the spread of renewable energy; a strengthening of energy efficiency; support to communities in their efforts to adapt to a changing climate; advocating, again, a phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies; an end, or close to it, of government funding of overseas coal plants; and more.

But here’s the thing, the very big “but” about Obama’s speech: it was the speech of an incrementalist on climate. His plans are not even close to what is needed. A goal of a 17% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2005 by 2020 is weak, very problematic. And the most problematic of all: in his speech Obama projected as the #1 thing we should be doing to reduce emissions the “strengthen[ing] of our position as the top natural gas producer” in the world. He did this even though in his plan of action he identifies the reduction of methane leakage into the atmosphere as one of his objectives. About 90% of natural gas is methane, and there’s a huge problem of leakage all throughout the lifecycle of gas, especially fracked gas. Talk about a contradiction!

We don’t need incremental action on climate. We need action that is appropriate to the deepening crisis. Even the head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, Christiana Figueres, politely criticized Obama’s speech: “I think the fact remains that compared to what the science demands, no country is doing enough.”

For years a number of people who have closely studied this issue and who have had the courage to speak out and take action—Al Gore, James Hansen and Bill McKibben, most prominently—have said that what is needed is the kind of society-wide mobilization on this issue that we saw right after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. We need a nonviolent, World War-type mobilization for a renewable energy revolution.

To move the United States and other laggard nations of the world toward this level of urgency, it is going to take a mass movement of many millions, and fortunately we’ve got one developing. You don’t bring 40,000-plus people to D.C. in the middle of the winter, as happened four months ago on Feb. 17, unless there’s something at work at the grassroots.

One month after Obama’s speech, during the statistically hottest time of the year, this fossil fuel resistance movement will take action in a coordinated way across the USA via 350.org’s Summer Heat campaign. Over the last 10 days of July, major, day-after-day actions all over the country will show the dedication and growing tactical sophistication and creativity of the fossil fuel resistance. Strategically, it’s happening at a key time given not just Obama’s speech but the continuation of an extreme-weather-events dynamic that has weakened the climate deniers and opened the minds of more and more US Americans to the climate issue.

One of the Summer Heat actions that I’m involved with is a nine-day walk from Camp David via Harpers Ferry to Washington, D.C. On that ninth day, Saturday, July 27th, there will be a rally at the White House in late morning to keep the pressure on Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline and step up his game on climate. Among those speaking at that rally will be Bill McKibben.

As we engage in these and future actions, it’s important that the fossil fuel resistance continue to engage with Obama and other incrementalist Democrats (and Republicans), pushing them to go past where they are right now.

It seems to me that there’s a potential analogy between Obama and the 3 ½ years he has left as President and Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War broke out. To Lincoln at the beginning of his term, the war was not about the abolition of slavery; it was about the preservation of the union. At that point in time he might have been willing to end the war if the Confederacy had agreed to stop fighting with a compromise of no spread of slavery beyond the South. But as the war developed, as Black people took direct action by leaving the plantations and migrating to Union-held territory, as the North had difficulty in subduing the South, Lincoln’s thinking evolved, leading to the Emancipation Proclamation and, in early 1865, his successful push for a Constitutional amendment outlawing slavery.

The world needs to see a similar evolution with Barack Obama when it comes to the climate crisis, and after his June 25th speech there’s reason to believe it could happen. Between the extreme weather events that will keep hitting us and the growth of the fossil fuel resistance movement, there’s little question that the pressures will intensify for action on climate at the scale of the crisis.

It’s impossible to know exactly how this might play itself out. But what we do know is what we need to do if it’s to have a chance of happening:

-Realize that mass movements that succeed are made up of people who have a common goal but varying ideas on how to get there and who are at different places as far as what they are willing to do.

-Keep building the fossil fuel resistance, from the grassroots up to the national and international levels.

-Keep engaging as is possible with Obama and other incrementalists, pushing them to realize the necessity of stronger action than they think is politically possible right now.

http://grist.org/article/obamas-lincoln-moment/feed/0Ernest Moniz and the Growing No-Fracking Movementhttp://grist.org/article/ernest-moniz-and-the-growing-no-fracking-movement/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/ernest-moniz-and-the-growing-no-fracking-movement/#commentsMon, 27 May 2013 16:52:03 +0000http://grist.org/?p=177936]]>It is very unfortunate that Ernest Moniz, the new Energy Secretary, is, like Barack Obama, an “all of the above” energy guy.

In his first week in office last week, he said some good things publicly about energy efficiency and solar, wind and geothermal energy.

The problem, however, is that Moniz is a big supporter of fracking. In the same interview linked above, he describes shale gas as a “bridge fuel,” giving us time, he says, to “develop the technology and lower the costs” of clean, renewable energy.

In this short interview Moniz accurately states that there is less C02 from the extraction, production and burning of gas than from coal or oil, but there is no mention of the huge issue of fugitive emissions of methane from fracked, as well as conventionally-produced, gas, all throughout its lifecycle. A growing number of reputable studies over the last two years have shown that, especially over a 20 year time frame, the production, distribution and burning of gas produces more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than oil or coal per unit of energy produced. This is the case because methane is a much more powerful GHG than CO2. And even the best regulations, backed up by adequate enforcement agents and mechanisms, all very unlikely, can have at best a limited impact. Gas is, after all, a powerful fossil fuel.

Moniz talks about developing the technology and lowering the costs of renewable energy, as if renewables are off in the future. They’re not. The fact is that fully 82% of the new electrical generating capacity in the United States in the first quarter of 2013 came from renewables, after 50% of it doing so for all of 2012.

We are literally on the cusp right now of the renewable energy revolution which can give the world a fighting chance of avoiding climate catastrophe. But the oil and gas industry is going full speed ahead, with federal government support, to dramatically increase pipelines and other infrastructure and build export terminals along our coasts. Their plan is to frack even more of our land, ship fracked gas around the world where gas prices are higher and make lots of money for their investors, even though the cost of gas will escalate for us here in the States.

This in no way is going to help the renewables industry. Resources to invest in energy are not unlimited. And which choice we make during these next few years of Obama’s second term will be decisive when it comes to the prospects for future generations on this earth.

This is the time, and we are the people who have to prevent the fossil fuelers from literally fracking it up.

Fortunately, many of us are stepping forward to do so. This June Stop the Frack Attack, a national network of groups fighting fracking which didn’t exist a year and a half ago, is calling for and organizing coordinated actions and initiatives throughout the month of June. The call to action explains why:

“Throughout the country activists are engaged in different battles against fracking and oil and gas drilling while campaigning to reduce harm from the industry in places where oil and gas is deeply entrenched. We are working to prevent the construction of new pipelines, compressor stations and gas export terminals, and to enact fracking bans or moratoria wherever we can. This growing movement is having an impact. More and more people in all walks of life are asking hard questions, learning the truth about fracking, speaking up and taking action.

“State governments and the federal government could act to protect us, yet too many elected officials are going along with the myth that oil and gas fracking is safe and that natural gas is a ‘clean’ energy source that brings economic benefit. We know that the myth is false: every dollar spent on more oil and gas keeps us from moving towards truly clean energy and ending our reliance on fossil fuels. It destroys truly sustainable jobs and the development of economies that are based on healthy communities.

“We have to tell everyone the real story. The out-of-control rush to drill is putting oil and gas industry profits over our health, our families, our property, our communities, and our futures. Our leaders must take action to stop the rush of unsafe oil and gas drilling.”

One of the forms of action happening in a number of places during this month of June is the showing of Josh Fox’s powerful sequel to his first movie on fracking, Gasland 2.

The last week of June will see actions organized by a new network, Fearless Summer. Actions against fracking will be linked with opposition to the other forms of extreme energy extraction: mountaintop removal coal mining, Arctic oil/gas drilling, tar sands oil exploitation and deep water offshore oil/gas drilling.

And one month later, during the statistically hottest time of the year, the last two weeks of July, day-after-day Join Summer Heat regional actions with a similar extreme energy approach will be organized by 350.org and other groups.

In the words of Christopher Fry:

“Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave until we take
The longest stride of soul [we humans] ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.”

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/ernest-moniz-and-the-growing-no-fracking-movement/feed/0Appalachians Make Toxic Water Delivery to EPAhttp://grist.org/article/appalachians-make-toxic-water-delivery-to-epa/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/appalachians-make-toxic-water-delivery-to-epa/#commentsWed, 08 May 2013 20:41:49 +0000http://grist.org/?p=174588]]>Over 100 people, primarily Appalachia residents, took action today at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., calling for the EPA to use its powers to end mountaintop removal.

15 people, including a couple of youth no older than 10, risked arrest by sitting in front of a main entrance to EPA. They sat next to about 75 one-gallon containers of dirty and toxic water brought to DC by Appalachian residents, the kind of water produced by mountaintop removal operations.

Appalachia Rising, the coalition of groups which organized the action, demanded that the EPA “sign for our delivery” of the water “and acknowledge the fact that Appalachian people are being exposed to toxic drinking water every day.

“Water contamination from surface mining is widespread throughout the Appalachian region, and more than 20 peer-reviewed studies have shown devastating health impacts. Citizens near mountaintop removal sites are 50% more likely to die of cancer and 42% more likely to be born with birth defects compared with other people in Appalachia.”

For two hours the sit-in went on, supported by the other demonstrators, most of whom stayed. People sang and chanted and several spoke as the time went by. They chanted, “EPA, Do Your Job,” and “Clean water is what we need, and EPA has got the key.” They sang Which Side Are You On, Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Clean Water, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around and others. One of the speakers, Kathryn Hilton, from the Mountain Watershed Association in western Pennsylvania, spoke about the connections between mountaintop removal and fracking for shale gas.

Finally, Nancy Stoner, head of the Water Division at EPA, did come down, was read a short declaration of why we were there by Kentuckian Teri Blanton, briefly acknowledged receiving hundreds of pages of documentation of this issue earlier in the week and said she would be looking into it.

It was an effective and well-organized action. Without question Appalachia Rising will be following up on it. To find out more and learn what you can do, go to http://appalachiarising.org.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/appalachians-make-toxic-water-delivery-to-epa/feed/0Hunger Strike on 27th Dayhttp://grist.org/article/hunger-strike-on-27th-day/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/hunger-strike-on-27th-day/#commentsSat, 27 Apr 2013 19:18:18 +0000http://grist.org/?p=172773]]>As I write this Brian Eister is on the 27th day of a water-only climate hunger strike outside the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C. The only thing he has consumed since April 1st is water, sodium and potassium.

Brian’s latest posts on his website, http://www.1future.net, report on both his continuing resolve but also the hunger and physical difficulties he is experiencing. On the 26th day he wrote, “The days are dragging on and hunger has become quite intense, but the sacrifice I am making here is modest. . .”

I know what he is going through. I have done three long hunger strikes of 25 or more days on water only. On the last two, one in 1992 and one in 2007, it was right around that time that my body began telling me that I needed to do one of two things if I was not to put myself at greater risk: slow down and use even less energy than I’d been using up to that point, or consume something that had calories.

On the 1992 one I slowed down and stayed on water-only, ending the fast with about a dozen others after 42 days. The purpose of it was to call attention to the need for US society to finally turn away from what Christopher Columbus set in motion 500 years before–the destruction of the ecosystem and the decimation of the Indigenous peoples of what is now called the Americas.

On the 2007 one, a climate emergency fast similar to Brian’s, I decided to go onto liquids after 25 days and, for the next 82 days, consumed fruit and vegetable juices and liquid-only soups and broths.

When I heard about Brian’s planned hunger strike several months ago, I seriously considered joining it but ending up deciding that it wasn’t the right thing for me to do at this time. But I support Brian and know that what he is doing is an important contribution to the process of building the kind of climate movement that has a fighting chance of making a renewable energy revolution in enough time to prevent runaway climate catastrophe.

“I am on hunger strike,” Brian writes, “because I can think of no action which could adequately express the urgency of humanity’s present situation. There are more than a few trends which, left unchecked, are likely to make life impossibly difficult for future generations. Global Warming, of course, seems to be the one that we have the least time to fix. Given the urgency of what is coming, every one of our lives should, first and foremost, be dedicated to preventing this coming catastrophe.”

I’ve recently read Proof of Heaven, a book which has been at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list for 25 weeks. It is written by a prominent, formerly non-religious brain surgeon, Eben Alexander, who nearly died in 2008 of an acute form of meningitis. During his seven days in a coma, he experienced what can only be described as an other-worldly, Heaven experience, and it changed his life.

In the book Alexander has an incisive quote which, I would say, helps to place what Brian is doing in its proper context:

“For all of the successes of Western civilization, the world has paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence—our human spirit. The shadow side of high technology—modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources—is bad enough. Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity.”

Fasting for more than a few days is one of the most effective ways, from my experience, to connect with what is most important in this world, and it definitely isn’t money and power. It is a way to develop one’s spiritual resources and resolve in the face of what often seem like very long odds.

Each of us as individuals will be strengthened if we take time to think about Brian’s sacrifice. We should reflect upon how we can speak up and take action beyond our current comfort level, at a level commensurate with the seriousness of the climate crisis.

Brian Eister, 26, is a youthful veteran of 10 years of activism going back to his opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Since then he has worked with John Kerry’s presidential campaign, the League of Conservation Voters, the Green Party, Public Citizen, Occupy, and other groups.

He is now on a hunger strike to urge immediate action to combat the disastrous effects of climate change. Camped out on the sidewalk in front of the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C., he has not taken any food since before midnight of April 1, subsisting on water, salt and potassium. He is committed to hunger striking for at least 30 days “to demonstrate the level of commitment, dedication and sacrifice necessary from all of us in the face of an existential crisis like global warming.With global catastrophe quickly becoming inevitable”, he says, “the time has come for tactics which reflect the urgency of our situation.”

Several other people will be joining Brian soon, and they intend to camp out in front of the API, fasting, for at least the remainder of April.

I’ve been touched by Brian’s commitment, and I know what he is going through. I was on three long fasts on climate between the fall of 2007 and the winter of 2009, for the same reasons as Brian. I know that water fasts, as distinct from liquid fasts, are both more difficult and more deepening. While water fasting, I came to understand what Gandhi meant when he said, “Fasting is the sincerest form of prayer.”

Oftentimes prayer, like hunger strikes, are what people do when they don’t know what else to do, when conditions are so serious that some power beyond the usual is felt as needed. There’s no question that this is our situation as far as climate change is concerned.

“We are out of time,” Brian has written. “Unless all of us come together now to create an extraordinary climate movement with hunger strikes, marches, visits to officials,

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/hunger-striking-for-an-extraordinary-climate-movement/feed/0Are We Winning the Clean vs. Dirty Energy Battle?http://grist.org/article/are-we-winning-the-clean-vs-dirty-energy-battle/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/are-we-winning-the-clean-vs-dirty-energy-battle/#commentsSun, 24 Mar 2013 23:30:25 +0000http://grist.org/?p=166879]]>“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

-Thomas Edison, 1931

I’ve been doing just about all I can for the last 10 years to help build the climate movement. For virtually all of that time I’ve done so without much hope that we can defeat Dirty Coal, Oil and Gas in enough time to prevent massive climate disruption.

In all honesty, many times I’ve felt that I was doing this work mainly to be able to live with myself, to know when I die that I have done all I could to try to stabilize the earth’s unraveling climate and the extreme, catastrophic weather that would come with that unraveling.

But over the last month or two, for very specific reasons, I’m coming to see things differently. I’m beginning to believe that the human race has a fighting chance of preventing runaway, catastrophic climate change and, in so doing, open the way for a much more just, peaceful and democratic world.

Why do I think this?

One reason was the Obama victory and the Congressional losses for the climate-denying Republican Party. It isn’t that I expect great things from Obama and the Democrats, especially if left to make energy decisions without any major political pressure; it’s that their winning gives the climate movement, and other movements, openings we wouldn’t have with Republican control of the White House and Congress.

Another reason is Obama speaking more substantively than he has in years about the climate crisis in both his Inaugural and State of the Union speeches.

Then there is the important initiative taken by the national Sierra Club, joined in by 350.org, the Hip Hop Caucus and 165 other groups, to organize the first actual “march on Washington” by the climate movement. And that demonstration was a big success, 40,000 or more determined and high-spirited people on a very cold mid-February day, from all over the country.

There is the on-going development of the No Keystone XL pipeline movement, from the cutting-edge actions of Tar Sands Blockade, to demonstrations taking place when Obama or Kerry leave their offices to speak publicly, to legal action winning initial victories in Nebraska, to over 52,000 people signed up to engage in “peaceful civil disobedience” if Kerry/Obama approve the pipeline, to much more, and much more to come.

There is the emergence of a nationally-connected, impacted-communities-rooted and activist-oriented movement against fracking via Stop the Frack Attack that will likely be organizing a national week of action against fracking in late spring or summer.

And there are the continuing series of polls that show, in part because of all the extreme weather events in the US in 2012, growing numbers–about 2/3rds of the US American people–who support action to deal with the climate crisis.

All of these developments, essentially political and movement-building developments, are evidence that we are winning the “hearts and minds’ battle, at the same time that we are ramping up and deepening the climate movement.

Just as significantly, the last couple of months have made me aware of good news as far as the developing economic and social shift from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy, particularly wind and solar.

At the national Stop the Frack Attack conference in Dallas, Texas I was inspired by solar entrepreneur Danny Kennedy’s presentation about how solar energy is poised to take off in the United States (it’s already doing so in Europe, China and elsewhere). Reading his book, Rooftop Revolution, provided a deeper understanding of what is going on: solar panels are becoming more efficient, they are coming down in a big way in price, and there are new ways for people to have them installed that make them much more affordable to many more people. As a result, rooftop solar in the US grew by 76% in 2012. China “recalibrated the target in its 12th five-year plan to 15 gigawatts installed by 2015—50% higher than the previous target.” (p, 22) “Globally, solar is the fastest-growing industry, valued at more than $100 billion. And in the US, it’s the fastest-growing job creating sector.” (p. 24) “The year 2011 marked the first time in history that [Europe, China and the US] invested more money in renewable energy than in fossil fuels.” (p. 28). “I think that history will look back on this period and see that the tide turned in 2010 when fully half of new electric generation coming online globally was renewable.” (p. 102)

As I wrote about in my March 17 column, 49% of new electrical generating capacity in the U.S. in 2012 was from renewables, primarily wind. This has never happened before, not even close. And in January of 2013, ALL new electrical power capacity, 100% of it, came from renewables.

And just today the front-page story in the New York Times Week in Review section, entitled “Life After Oil and Gas,” by Elisabeth Rosenthal, details both this economic/social shift and reports favorably on a recent analysis which shows that New York State, “not windy like the Great Plains, nor sunny like Arizona, could easily produce the power it needs from wind, solar and water power by 2030. ‘It’s absolutely not true that we need natural gas, coal or oil—we think it’s a myth,’ said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the main author of the study, published in the journal Energy Policy.”

Finally, in an insightful article spreading over the internet by Australian writer and sustainability advisor Paul Gilding, Victory at Hand for the Climate Movement?, some extremely important contextual points are made:

Gilding says, “Considering how long other great social movements took to have an impact – such as equality for women or the end of slavery and civil rights movements – then what’s surprising is not that the climate movement hasn’t yet succeeded. What’s surprising is how far it has come and how deeply it has become embedded in such a short time. And now is the moment when its greatest success might be about to be realised – and just in time.”

Gilding explains that 2012 wasn’t just a year when we saw an increase in extreme weather events worldwide; we also saw institutions of the 1% like the World Bank, IMF and International Energy Agency all make strong statements about the need to shift away from fossil fuels, with the IEA actually saying that a majority of the fossil fuels in the ground need to stay there.

He points to the significance of “a disruptive economic shift already underway in the global energy market. There are two indicators of this, with the first being the much noted acceleration in the size of the renewable energy market with dramatic price reductions and the arrival of cost competitive solar and wind. It is hard to overstate the significance of this as it changes the game completely. . .

“Of equal importance is the awakening of the sleeping giant of carbon risk, with open discussion in mainstream financial circles of the increasing dangers in financial exposure to fossil fuels. This has been coming for several years because of the financial risk inherent in the carbon bubble. As Phil Preston and I argued in a paper in 2010 and I further elaborated in The Great Disruption, the contradiction between what the science says is essential, and the growth assumptions made by the fossil fuel industry is so large it represents a systemic global financial risk.”

Gilding summarizes what this all means:

“ – The financial markets are waking up to the transformation logic – if the future is based in renewables and these are price competitive without subsidy, or soon will be, the transformation could sweep the economy relatively suddenly, even without further government leadership.

“ – This then puts in place an enormous and systemic financial risk – in particular investments in, or debt exposure to, the multi-trillion dollar fossil fuel industry.

“ – This risk is steadily being increased by activist campaigns against fossil fuel projects (worsening each projects’ financial risk) and arguing for fossil fuel divestment (putting investors’ reputation in play as well).

“ – In response investors and lenders will reduce their exposure to fossil fuels and hedge their risk by shifting their money to high growth renewables.

“ – This will then reinforce and manifest the very trend they are hedging against.

“ – Thus it’s game on.”

I’m not enough of an economist or a student who has studied these economic trends to wholly endorse what Gilding says, but what he says has the ring of truth to it. It should be constructively criticized, or built upon, by those who are able to do. It’s a very important article.

All of us who are doing this work need to internalize that we are in a new period for our movement. We should take heart from these recent developments, realize that, as powerful as the dirty fossil fuel corporate honchos seem to be, there are very concrete and practical reasons to believe that their power and wealth is reaching its limits and will soon decline. Let’s keep the faith, step up our activism, bring new people into our ranks and keep broadening and growing our movement. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, the light of the sun combined with the light of our people-powered movement.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/are-we-winning-the-clean-vs-dirty-energy-battle/feed/0Obama: “All of the above,” again and againhttp://grist.org/article/obama-all-of-the-above-again-and-again/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/obama-all-of-the-above-again-and-again/#commentsSun, 17 Mar 2013 23:12:17 +0000http://grist.org/?p=165440]]>The day after the November 6 election I wrote about Obama’s electoral victory over Romney, which I was glad for. My column was about the need for the climate movement to “make it impossible for the Obama administration not to speak up and take action on the rapidly deepening and most important issue human civilization has ever faced. The world is crying out, almost literally, for smart, determined and visionary leadership on the climate crisis.”

When I heard a few weeks later that Obama had directed White House staff to come up with proposals for what he should be doing in his second term on climate, I was encouraged. When he finally spoke substantively about climate in his Inaugural speech, I allowed myself to hope that things could well be different in his second four years. When, a few weeks later, he made climate one of the main issues of his State of the Union message, I was glad to hear it, though there was little specificity.

Two days ago Obama gave what the White House billed as a “major speech” on climate and energy in Chicago at the Argonne National Laboratory. In connection with that speech a document, “President Obama’s Blueprint for a Clean and Secure Energy Future,” was released publicly.

Unfortunately, the one, new, specific proposal from Obama in his speech was for the creation of an Energy Security Trust. $2 billion would be spent over a 10 year period–$200 million a year—for “research into a range of cost effective technologies—like advanced vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, fuels cells and domestically produced natural gas.” That was it; nothing else, a lousy $200 million a year. And there are very real questions about biofuels and, more significantly, amply-documented, serious environmental and climate problems when it comes to natural gas, particularly because most of it will be produced by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

This proposal in Chicago was consistent with the content of the “Blueprint” document. There are positive things in it for sure, though the general approach is for incremental shifting to a more energy efficient and renewables-based economy. As would be expected with an all-of-the-above approach, there is no serious prioritization of wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables.

The “Blueprint” reiterates Obama’s commitment to the originally-Republican approach of “all-of-the-above” as far as where the US is going to get its energy. It is self-congratulatory for all of the “responsible oil and gas production” that has “increased each year” under Obama. It projects US support for nuclear power exports. It calls for “doubling” renewable electricity generation over the next eight years which, given the fact that it doubled between 2009 and 2013, would mean an actual slowing down of the rate of renewables growth over the rest of the decade.

Given the acceleration and deepening of climate disruption, as seen by the growth of extreme weather events worldwide, a record-smashing reduction of Arctic sea ice in 2012 and an apparent acceleration in the rate of annual growth of carbon in the atmosphere, these approaches don’t come close to reflecting the urgency of our situation.

But what is most troubling about “Blueprint” is that it continues the Obama administration’s “all-in” approach to fracking and natural gas. This includes a plan for a “streamlined system for oil and gas permits” for new drilling. Once again, as Obama has done in the past, it describes gas as a “nearly 100-year resource,” which is inaccurate, essentially gas industry pr. It projects a measly $40 million for “research to ensure safe and responsible natural gas production” (please!!!).

Presented as a major bulleted item in bold letters, it “commits to partnering with the private sector to adopt natural gas and other alternative fuels in the Nation’s trucking fleet. . . The President is committed to accelerating the growth of this domestically abundant fuel and other alternative fuels in the transportation sector.” And finally, it projects that, internationally, the U.S. will help other countries develop their oil and gas and “work to help countries with unconventional natural gas resources [shale gas] to identify and develop them safely.”

It is beyond ironic that the Obama administration put forward this very problematic approach at the same time that the United States and the world are seeing a dramatic increase in wind and solar energy production. The day before Obama’s speech, the Solar Energy Industries Association released a Solar Market Insight Report for 2012, which reported that US photovoltaic solar installations—rooftop solar—grew 76% in 2012 to reach 3,313 Megawatts. It reported further that “the U.S. accounted for 11% of all global PV installations in 2012, its highest market share in at least fifteen years.”

A recent article at Grist.org quoted from a Bloomberg report on projected solar growth worldwide in 2013: “New solar generating capacity expected to be installed around the world in 2013 will be capable of producing almost as much electricity as eight nuclear reactors, according to Bloomberg, which interviewed seven analysts and averaged their forecasts. That would be a rise of 14 percent over last year for a total of 34.1 gigawatts of new solar capacity, thanks in large part to rising demand in China, the U.S., and Japan.”

And check this out: for 2012, as far as new electrical generating capacity coming on line in the US, just about half, 49% of it, was from renewables, primarily wind. This has never happened before. In January of 2013, all new electrical power capacity, 100% of it, came from renewables, again primarily wind. (from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s “Energy Infrastructure Update.”)

These hopeful developments make Obama’s “major speech” on climate look downright timid and weak, at best.

It is clear that the climate movement must rise up, refuse to be chumped, as Van Jones advised us on Feb. 17 in DC. And we are doing so. Over 52,000 people, so far, have “pledged, if necessary, to join others in my community, and engage in acts of dignified, peaceful civil disobedience that could result in my arrest in order to send the message to President Obama and his administration that they must reject the Keystone XL pipeline.” Actions around the country, including at the White House on Thursday, are taking place this week as part of a Tar Sands Blockade week of action. And we’re just getting rolling. “We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.”

A Religious Call to Civil Disobedience at 12:00 Noon, Thursday, March 21st

At noon on March 21st, religiously and spiritually rooted Americans of all traditions will gather at the White House for a moral act of loving nonviolent civil disobedience. This action, organized by the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC), will make clear to President Obama that his inspired pledge to halt the destruction of the Earth from climate change requires that he take bold and courageous actions, including rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

As religious leaders and individuals who recognize the moral imperative of taking unified, visible action to ensure that our nation’s leaders act responsibly to address climate change, we invite you to join us at the White House on March 21st, either to engage in civil disobedience, or to stand with others in a circle of support for those who do choose to risk arrest.

Our March 21st action will occur at a critical moment: Many of our religious communities will be preparing for Passover and Holy Week, (Palm Sunday begins Holy Week on March 24; the first night of Passover is on Monday, March 25), even as our President faces a profound decision that will affect our planet – teetering on the edge of a climate tipping point – and the human communities throughout the Earth already suffering the effects of the climate crisis and threatened with more and worsening disasters.

As we observe the upcoming holy days, our ancient sacred wisdoms remind us that top-down power must be called to account for us to win through to the Promised Land, the Beloved Community.

Super-storm Sandy, the drastic droughts in our corn country, record-breaking Arctic ice melt, disasters in Australia, Russia, Pakistan and Africa, and the realization that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the continental United States all warn us: the disruption of our planet will not wait for our “normal” political paralysis to end.

We are inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was among the leaders of a profoundly religious and spiritual movement to heal us from the great dangers of war and injustice in his day:

“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now…. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ’Too late’.”

And we take note that even a leading secular journalist, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, has called for civil disobedience to insist on strong measures to heal the climate crisis.

If we go over the Climate Cliff now, experiencing Plagues in our own generation as the Bible describes the Ten Plagues – all eco-disasters — long ago, our grandchildren will live in misery and suffering.

Today’s Plagues endanger the web of life upon our planet, including the human race – and inflict the greatest harm on the poorest and most vulnerable among us. We are especially concerned by the effects on local communities and our planetary future of destructive, extreme energy extraction: mountaintop removal, fracking, Arctic and deep sea offshore oil drilling, and tar sands mining.

Out of our moral commitment to protect and heal God’s Creation, our religious communities need to be calling for a set of first-step changes that will sow the seeds of greater change, by committing the President and Congress to vigorous action.

As we prepare for civil disobedience at the White House, we address not only our government, but also religious communities throughout the country: In the name of Creator Spirit, Holy One of Being — JOIN US!

On Thursday, March 21st at 12:00 Noon, we will gather in Lafayette Park (directly across from the White House on Pennsylvania Ave., NW) carrying three sacred symbols:

The Palms that greeted Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, — green fronds of life to challenge the deadliness of the Roman Empire;

The Matzoh, unleavened bread that began as the food of the poor and afflicted but became the bread of life and freedom when the People of Israel hurried forth in the fierce urgency of Now.

The Globe of the planet we share, God’s Creation — for all our traditions, a symbol of sharing and wholeness of the Earth for which we sing:

“We’ve got the whole world in our hands, We’ve got rivers and mountains in our hands, We’ve got frogs and polar bears in our hands, We’ve got our children and their children in our hands — We’ve got the whole world in our hands!”

What will we be urging that the President do to meet the needs of this critical hour in planetary time? He must take actions necessary to heal our communities and the Earth, such as these:

1. Permanently refuse permits for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, because tar-oil is among the most dangerous of the planet-heating forms of carbon.

2. Call now a National Summit Conference on the Climate Crisis to meet with the urgency that the crisis demands — including leaders of business, labor, academia, religious communities, governmental officialdom, science, and other relevant bodies.

3. Publicly support and advocate for a carbon fee that will generate hundreds of billions of dollars, with provisions to ensure that working families and the poor are not harmed by higher carbon prices; for an end to subsidies to the coal, oil and gas industries; and for substantial subsidies for research, development, and use of renewable, sustainable and jobs-creating clean energy sources.

In the Name of the God whose Names are many, we invite and urge you to join us on March 21st at the White House. To endorse this action or indicate your intention to take part, please contact Cindy Harris at cynthiaharris4930@gmail.com.

Yesterday over 100 people from dozens of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware groups joined together in one of the most empowering actions I’ve been part of in a long time. For two and a half hours, led by Maya Van Rossom and Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeepers Network, we nonviolently and creatively took over the latest meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission.

We took this action because of the DRBC’s complete failure, so far at least, to deal with the 13 natural gas pipelines that are being built or are planned to be built through the Delaware River watershed. These pipelines will bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania and elsewhere to major east coast markets and, the gas industry hopes, to export terminals for sale overseas.

Yesterday, when it became clear that the commission had no intention of even discussing this issue despite official requests over several months from Delaware Riverkeepers and other groups, the no-fracking movement literally stood up and made their voices heard. One by one, from the audience, people got up to speak, following one another, without commission permission but eventual commission acquiescence. Dozens did so.

The stories people told were inspiring. There was the father of Alex Totorto speaking passionately about his son and others locking down and tree sitting to try to prevent the cutting down of trees to build the Tennessee gas pipeline. There was Maya Van Rossom articulating clearly and in commission language why this was their responsibility and how they had so far failed to do their job. There were speakers who pointed out that there is still a DRBC moratorium on fracking in the Delaware River basin and that it was hypocritical or worse for the commission to then allow all these fracking pipelines to go through the area. There were young people in their 20’s and one man who looked to be in his 80’s. There was a woman who sang a song for the commission and talked about how she didn’t have anything to give them in writing but she was giving them her heart via her song.

None of it visibly moved the commission. After two hours of heart-felt testimony, the commission chair literally said nothing about that testimony and proceeded to try to move ahead with their planned agenda. They didn’t respond to Maya Van Rossom’s request that they put the issue of the Tennessee gas and the other planned pipelines on this agenda. But we weren’t done.

Prior to the meeting a song sheet with the words to This Land Is Your Land had been distributed, and as the commission chair used her microphone to try to conduct business, we all stood up and began loudly singing this Woody Guthrie song. We moved forward towards the commission, blocked about 10 feet away from them by security personnel. Within a couple of minutes, the commission was forced to stop attempting to do their business and, instead, they sat silently as, for the next half hour, until they officially adjourned, we sang and chanted. We sang This Land several times, as well as We Shall Not Be Moved and We Shall Overcome, substituting in those civil rights songs appropriate verses for this 21st century struggle for a clean energy revolution, for our threatened Mother Earth and all of its life forms.

James Connolly, the Irish nationalist, socialist and labor leader martyred after the Easter Uprising in 1916, wrote over 100 years ago about the importance of song to a genuine mass movement. He wrote, “No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinct marks of a popular revolutionary movement.”

The fracking movement is popular, and it is growing in strength and in organization. Just this past weekend there was a highly successful national conference in Dallas, Texas organized by the Stop the Frack Attack network, attended by 300 or more people from around the USA. There was no question at this conference but that this movement is about nothing less than a revolutionary change in where we get our energy and who controls it. We need to move away from centralized, dirty, climate-wrecking fossils fuels to clean, renewable energy sources like the sun and the wind, all happening as part of a process of a truly democratic transformation of society.

One of our chants yesterday as we stood, sang and chanted close to the commission was this one: “Tell me what democracy looks like; This is what democracy looks like.” People speaking up, speaking from the heart, refusing to stand by and allow injustice and destruction to take place without a fight, putting what is right for us and future generations before anything else. This is truly what democracy looks like, and we need more of it.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/no-fracking-no-fracking-pipelines/feed/0Our Lunch Counter Momenthttp://grist.org/article/our-lunch-counter-moment/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/our-lunch-counter-moment/#commentsMon, 18 Feb 2013 17:44:04 +0000http://grist.org/?p=159745]]>“Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now. The frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;
The thunder is the thunder of the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul we ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.”

-Christopher Fry, A Sleep of Prisoners

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the Hip Hop Caucus and the MC at yesterday’s massive Forward on Climate rally in Washington, D.C., talks all the time about this being the climate movement’s “lunch counter moment.” And, thank God, it looks like he has been prophetic.

“Lunch counter moment” refers to the point in 1960 when the African-American freedom movement took off. It did so when young black people all over the South began sitting in at segregated public lunch counters, refusing to leave until served. For these actions, they were beaten, spat upon, arrested and more by white racists and racist power structures, but their courage and nonviolent direct action galvanized a south-wide and then national movement which, five years later, forced the federal government to pass a Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act outlawing legal segregation.

Without this movement, Barack Obama would never have been President. Much more importantly, without it we would not have seen the end of 1950’s McCarthyism, the rise of a powerful anti-war movement, women’s movement, environmental movement, lgbt movement and more.

The climate movement’s lunch counter moment: what was it about Feb. 17 in DC which makes it realistically possible that history will record this action as the launching pad for the “yes, we did,” massive popular movement which literally pulled human society back from the cliff of looming, catastrophic climate disruption?

Numbers: Size is sometimes important, and it definitely was yesterday. All the main organizers expected tens of thousands, but I don’t think too many expected 40,000 to 50,000. Especially given the incredibly cold weather, this was a huge accomplishment for our movement.

Determination: It was really cold yesterday, with a wind chill that had to be around 10 degrees at times when that wind whipped across the mall, and it did so often. Yet the crowd kept growing all morning and into the early afternoon, and virtually no one left. People could have said, after an hour or two, well, this is important, and I’m glad I came, but I’ve got to get to somewhere warm. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. For four hours, from 12-4, for some longer, we persevered and, indeed, we stood (and jumped) strong.

Unity: The Sierra Club is to be commended for their courage in calling for this action right after the November election and for the resources which they threw into it, as is 350.org, the Hip Hop Caucus and many of the 168 organizations that both formally supported it and worked hard to mobilize. Despite tensions and differences, the coalition held together and, as a result, yielded the powerful harvest of the day.

Geographic breadth: People were there from all over the country. Over 150 buses came from 30 states, some of them on the road for over 24 hours one-way. And with the 20 or so solidarity rallies mainly in faraway locales, this breadth was magnified.

Diverse Leadership: It was truly refreshing to have Rev. Yearwood MC this rally, clearly in his element, to hear the powerful statements from the Canadian First Nation leaders Chief Jacqueline Thomas and Crystal Lameman, and Van Jones urging young people not to be “chumped,” to demand that Obama follow through and get real both in word and action on climate. Although the crowd did not have the full diversity needed, it is important that the surging climate movement is supporting and bringing forward leadership coming out of communities of color on this issue.

Not just the pipeline: The tar sands Keystone XL pipeline was the prime issue that brought this effort together, but it was much more. It was a vision of a future where our energy sources are clean, renewable and democratically controlled by the people, not dirty fossil fuel, corporate honchos. It is a vision which opposes all of the extreme energy extraction industrial processes: mountaintop removal, oil drilling in the Arctic ocean and in deep water offshore, fracking, as well as tar sands. Everyone understands that victory on the pipeline is just the first step, the turning point, towards what we urgently need.

Multi-tactical: Finally, it was striking to experience the activities which took place in the week leading up to February 17. It began with a civil disobedience action on Wednesday, close to 50 people locking themselves to the White House fence, highlighted by Sierra Club leader Mike Brune taking part, the first time in their 120-year history that they have done so. The next day, with Bill McKibben and Mike Brune there to offer words of support, US Senators Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer publicly announced their introduction of a “gold standard’ fee-and-dividend bill that Boxer hopes will go to the floor of the Senate this summer. And then came yesterday’s massive demonstration.

The students who sat in at the lunch counters in February of 1960 and who then formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, were clear that to defeat segregation they would need to engage in essentially non-stop organizing and action. Today’s climate movement must do the same, and more need to figure out how they can do more on a personal level. We need to step up nationally coordinated actions at the scale of the problem, this year, this spring. “Affairs are now soul size.”

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/our-lunch-counter-moment/feed/0Big Steps Forward for US Climate Movementhttp://grist.org/article/big-steps-forward-for-us-climate-movement/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/big-steps-forward-for-us-climate-movement/#commentsTue, 05 Feb 2013 16:20:28 +0000http://grist.org/?p=157470]]>There are two major events being organized by the US climate movement over the next month.

The first and most immediately significant event is what is being described (accurately) as the biggest climate demonstration in US history, taking place February 17th in Washington, D.C. Tens of thousands of people have already signed up indicating their intention to take part, and momentum is building.

This action was called by the Sierra Club soon after the November elections. The official call to action that went out in December came from them, 350.org and the Hip Hop Caucus. Since that time close to 100 organizations have endorsed it, mostly environmental and climate groups but also including the League of Women Voters, MoveOn, the Nebraska Farmers Union, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen and United for Peace and Justice.

The demonstration is happening on President’s Day weekend, on purpose. The major target is President Obama. He is being called upon to give real content to his inaugural call for action on climate, to lead practically on this urgent issue, and, most specifically, to permanently reject the tar sands Keystone XL pipeline.

The tar sands, without question, has become a “line in the sand” for enviros, climate activists and most progressives in the US and Canada, and we are having a real impact.

There is the broadly-based, effective and escalating actions of Indigenous and others groups in Canada and the just-won’t-give-up organizing of Bold Nebraska. There’s the harassing activities of Tar Sands Blockade in Texas and organizing in New England against another potential tar sands pipeline proposed for that area. There is the on-going work of various national enviro and climate groups. And finally, with the replacement at the State Department of Hillary Clinton by former U.S. Senate climate champion John Kerry, big shots at TransCanada and within the oil and gas industry and the conservative Canadian government cannot be feeling so good these days.

Let’s really “make their day” on February 17th, come out in such large numbers that history will record this as a turning point day for the Keystone XL pipeline, all the various tar sands pipeline proposals, the tar sands itself and, indeed, the whole dirty fossil fuel corporate enterprise in North America.

Stop the Frack Attack Convenes

Two weeks after Feb. 17, the no-fracking movement will convene for a national conference right in the belly of the beast of the gas industry, in Dallas, Texas, from March 2-4. Organized by Stop the Frack Attack, the coalition which brought thousands to DC on July 28th last year, this event will be attended by hundreds, not tens of thousands, but it will still be significant. This will be the first major national conference of the movement against fracking that has grown up over the last several years.

As explained at http://stopthefrackattack.org, people from across the US will “attend to share stories, build skills, become better spokespeople, learn about the clean energy alternatives to oil and natural gas, celebrate victories and help build this national movement. We are also organizing a rally on Monday, to welcome the Texas State government back to work and remind them that they work for the people and not the oil and gas industry. . . The Dallas/Fort Worth area represents urban fracking at its worst; as you fly in you can see well pads as far as the eye can see, and once you land you are greeted by a compressor station right outside the airport. Dallas/Fort Worth is also home to many of the oil and gas companies destroying our communities around the country.”

Without question, the problems with fracking will be part of what is said from the stage and printed on the signs and banners of those attending the Feb. 17 DC demonstration. President Obama is in serious need of a wake-up call about how problematic fracking is. So far, he has been an unabashed cheerleader for this polluting and destructive industry, not just for those who live near fracking wells or who drink water downriver from them but for the earth.

Fracking leads to significant releases of methane, a greenhouse gas between 72-105 times as powerful as carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it enters the atmosphere. Recent studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that, in Colorado and Utah, there was a 4% and 9% methane leakage rate, respectively, in areas where there are large numbers of gas wells. These leakage rates alone, not counting other methane released over the life cycle of natural gas, make the gas produced in these areas worse than coal as far as greenhouse gas emissions.

Natural gas, however it is produced, is a fossil fuel that when burned and when released into the atmosphere makes our historic task of reducing atmospheric ghg’s more difficult. The current “gold rush” to produce fracked gas has without question weakened the absolutely essential, urgent need to move from fossil fuels to clean, jobs-creating, renewable energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal.

We need a nationally coordinated, unified movement that recognizes fracking for what it is, that slows and stops the mad rush toward a massive expansion of gas infrastructure intended to dramatically accelerate overseas gas exports, and that works closely with the broader climate and progressive movements to accomplish this absolutely essential goal.

Proposed legislation would harm environment and, opponents say, constitutes a confession that Dominion has accepted $77 million from ratepayers without properly fulfilling intent of current law

RICHMOND—Dominion Virginia Power has informed environmental groups that the company has reached a tentative agreement with Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to support legislation that would effectively repeal the state’s signature clean energy law. The move, environmentalists said, would not only harm the environment but also represents a de facto admission of guilt by Dominion. The company has already accepted $77 million from ratepayers without making the clean energy investments that the General Assembly first intended with its original 2007 law.

Cuccinelli, a nationally known global warming denier who has sued the US EPA and the University of Virginia in the past to advance a radical anti-environmental agenda, has been critical of the state’s “Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)” law for some time. Dominion, meanwhile, has been publicly criticized for months by environmental and health leaders in the state for exploiting loopholes in the RPS energy law to gain millions of dollars in incentive payments from customers without developing a single wind farm or large solar project in the state.

Rather than work with lawmakers and advocates to strengthen the renewable energy standard and close controversial loopholes, Dominion has formed an alliance with Cuccinelli to render the law useless through a de facto repeal. As detailed to environmental advocates, Dominion and Cuccinelli are moving to repeal the performance incentive that serves as the law’s only mechanism for holding utilities accountable to fulfilling their clean energy goals. The Dominion-Cuccinelli proposal is a radical move that clean energy advocates statewide described as out of step with mainstream voters, a claim supported by recent polling.

“This is a sad, sad day for the state of Virginia,” said Dawone Robinson, Virginia Policy Coordinator, for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “Citizens should tell Dominion and Cuccinelli to close the loopholes in the current clean energy law, not cynically repeal it completely.”

Hundreds of activists picketed Dominion’s downtown Richmond office for a week in October demanding that the company instead follow the proper intent of the law and earn its clean-energy incentives by investing in wind and solar power. Senator A. Donald McEachin and Delegate Alfonso Lopez are introducing common-sense legislation that would strengthen the RPS law by requiring Dominion to invest in wind and solar power in Virginia in order to qualify for these financial incentives, thus fulfilling the intent of the law to spur a clean energy industry in the commonwealth. A September statewide poll of likely voters showed that 63 percent of Virginians back this approach.

“Kids with asthma, Hurricane Sandy victims, and tourists who want to see the Shenandoah Mountains instead of smog—they all want clean energy in this state,” said Robinson. “And as in dozens of other states, our current clean electricity law can succeed if it is firmly reformed and Dominion agrees to stop gaming the rules. We need to fix the RPS law, not repeal it.”

Critics point out that the Dominion-Cuccinelli alliance to repeal the clean energy law in Virginia is consistent with nationwide efforts by the controversial and archconservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). With funding from major oil and coal companies, ALEC has stated that it will prioritize efforts to repeal RPS laws in states from coast to coast in 2013 through its model “Electricity Freedom Act” legislation. The group is known for promoting a wide array of ultra-conservative policies, including the “stand your ground” gun law in Florida that police believe played a role in the death of an unarmed teenager in 2012.

Meanwhile, as climate scientists in Virginia and worldwide continue to document record heat, drought, sea-level rise, and storms linked to global warming and fossil fuel use, Dominion Power continues to declare its overwhelming commitment to combusting dirty energy to meet the state’s future energy needs. In its most recent 15-year plan, Dominion said it still expects to generate the majority of its power for utility customers by burning fossil fuels, like coal and gas, in 2027. The company stated an astonishingly small 3.9 percent as its expected generation from clean, renewable energy sources in that year.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/ken-cuccinelli-and-dominion-power-move-to-repeal-virginia-rps/feed/0Multifaith Action at White House on Jan. 15http://grist.org/article/multifaith-action-at-white-house-on-jan-15/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/multifaith-action-at-white-house-on-jan-15/#commentsThu, 10 Jan 2013 14:07:35 +0000http://grist.org/?p=152415]]>To bring attention to the urgent need for action on climate change, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC) will be leading “A Pray-in for the Climate” in front of the White House on Tuesday, January 15th, the 84th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Leaders and individuals from Buddhist, Christian (Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant), Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and other faith traditions will gather to call for immediate and comprehensive action to address the greatest moral and social issue of our time: climate change.

Events for the day include:
— 11:00 am - Multi-Faith Service - New York Avenue Presbyterian Church (1313 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC)
— 12:00 pm - March to the White House (1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW)
— 12:30 pm - Prayer Vigil at White House
"The way we respond to our warming planet is absolutely an issue of social justice," “ said Rev. Bob Edgar, CEO Common Cause and former head of National Council of the Churches. “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often invoked 'the fierce urgency of now' in calling people to action, and nowhere are his words more relevant than in the moral imperative we share as people of faith to take decisive action against climate change.”
“Extreme weather events increasing in frequency and intensity, such as Superstorm Sandy, the ongoing drought and record-breaking Arctic ice melt all illustrate that the disruption of the planet will not wait for our nation’s unconscionable political paralysis," said Jacqui Patterson, director of the Climate Justice Initiative for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). “Serious action at the highest levels of our government is required to address the growing climate crisis, which poses a grave threat to the delicate web of life upon our planet and inflicts the greatest suffering on those who have contributed the least to the problem — our poorest and most vulnerable communities.”
“President Obama needs to lead more than a conversation about climate change. It’s time he and our leaders recognize this threat and lead us toward a more energy efficient and sustainable future," said Rabbi Arthur Waskow. “"Some of us might be arrested, and frankly, it’s worth it; — we need to show that this is an issue the President must address aggressively.”
"The people of the Rockaways, Red Hook and Staten Island most affected by Superstorm Sandy feel like canaries in the mineshaft preparing for climate disaster. It's high time for the President and the Congress to speak out and give us aid for this life and death issue," said Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, Coordinator for Relief and Recovery for the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.
IMAC is a collaborative initiative of religious and faith-based leaders, groups and individuals of good will that came together in 2011 in response to the pressing need for more visible, unified, prophetic action to address the climate crisis.

Filed under: Article]]>http://grist.org/article/multifaith-action-at-white-house-on-jan-15/feed/0Promised Land, a movie reviewhttp://grist.org/article/promised-land-a-movie-review/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_tedglick
http://grist.org/article/promised-land-a-movie-review/#commentsSat, 05 Jan 2013 18:56:48 +0000http://grist.org/?p=151711]]>Promised Land, the new movie starring Matt Damon, is a movie in part about fracking, the new and extremely problematic way of getting natural gas out of shale rock far below the earth’s surface. It’s a very good movie, with good acting, particularly by Damon in a very different role than, for example, his Jason Bourne trilogy. Instead of being a kick-ass former CIA assassin on a mission to reclaim his memory and the truth about what was done to him, in Promised Land Damon is a conflicted, conscience-stricken, corporate hot shot “land man” using bribes and threats, when necessary, to get people in a small, rural town to agree to let their town be fracked.

But the movie in no way presents all, or even most, of the many problems that come with fracking, much less do so in a clear and convincing way. The primary problem it does present is the very real one of contamination of land and water. This happens as a result of the toxic chemicals, mixed with water and sand, that are forced down into the shale under heavy pressure to break the rock and release the gas within it. Some of that toxic mix comes back up, along with methane, the primary ingredient of natural gas, and there are huge numbers of specific instances of plant and animal deaths, human sickness and water poisoning afterwards that are clear proof of this serious problem.

But there are many more that Promised Land doesn’t mention, much less explain:

-most importantly, fracking’s huge and growing contribution to our global heating crisis: methane is 72-105 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2 over the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere, and studies over the past two years, including by the EPA, show that there is much more methane leakage over the lifecycle of fracked, as well as conventionally-produced, natural gas, than the oil/gas industry admits.

-the contamination of rivers close to fracking sites through either deliberate dumping of “flowback” wastewater after a well is drilled or through migration of those fluids underground;

-the drawdown of massive amounts of sometimes-scarce–as in historically dry or dought-impacted areas–nearby river and lake water, many millions of gallons per well;

-documented radiation levels in wastewater 100 or more times the EPA’s drinking water standard;

-disruption of other economically- and socially-valued industries or practices, such as agriculture, tourism, hunting and fishing;

-fragmentation of woods and forests via construction of well sites, pipelines, roads and other infrastructure;

-a decline in property values of homes and land adjacent to or near wells; and,

-earthquakes: the United States Geological Survey has reported that deep underground injection of drilling wastewater is the probable cause of a six-fold increase in earthquakes in middle America in 2011 compared to 20th century levels.

So if you are looking for a movie about all of these negative realities of fracking, Promised Land is not the movie to watch.

Promised Land is in many ways more a movie about corporate power and the ideology that undergirds it versus the power of an informed people and the old-but-still-good values of love for family, land, home and the truth. The energy company that Damon works for is thoroughly despicable, while individual people who work for it like Damon and the character played by Frances McDormand are shown as more complex, still human, less corporatist in their ideology.

One small but telling example is when a youngish man overly excited about the potential riches he thinks he will gain from signing a lease drives up to Damon in a fancy new car. Because of a prior scene, the movie audience knows that the money he will get from the gas under his land, if there is any, will probably not pay for this car. At the time Damon is struggling with his conscience, and as he looks at the expensive car and the young man you can almost feel his angst, his guilt over what he may have done.

Hal Holbrook is effective as a smart and articulate older teacher who is the only townsperson, at first, aware of some of fracking’s dangers and willing to stand up and say so publicly. Unfortunately, when he does so for the first time, he also describes gas as “clean,” which it absolutely isn’t. He does, however, play a key role in the movie’s successful effort to counterpose a life of place, of community, of eternal values against the scheming and greed-driven corporate culture that has no difficulty destroying anything in its way.

There’s a lot of food for thought in Promised Land, and I hope large numbers of people see it.